August 3, 2014

Gultrage Reboot

Now click here for http://gultrage.tumblr.com/

June 25, 2014

Don't Be That Guy 5

Don't be that guy: Professional Candy Crusher

This guy was at the bus stop. His bus was on the other side of the intersection stuck in a traffic jam. He realized it would take eighty more seconds for the bus to reach the stop, so he took out his phone and started playing Candy Crush. Right there on the road at ten in the morning with twenty other people rushing to catch the bus!

I was impressed with his commitment to crushing candies and his Zen-like demeanour while he was at it. Maybe that’s his passion in life. Like how Sivamani makes music by clinking his morning coffee cup with a tea spoon.

So I installed Candy Crush on my phone to see what hidden gems it has. And by the time I was on level six, I couldn’t help but wonder how boring that guy must find reality that he cannot bear sixty seconds of it. What exactly is his brain subconsciously avoiding? Excel sheets? Emptiness? Original thoughts? We may never know.

Don't be that guy: Birthday song charanam singer

Don't be that girl who uses the phrase 'Golden words are not repeated'

What the hell does that even mean? It doesn’t make any sense. I first heard it when I was 6 years old. I found it extremely annoying. I recently heard someone say it again. It still sounds as gross as a hippo in a thong.

Don't be that guy: Vegetarian Thoughts

Don't be that guy who orders Mocktails at treats

I know as a teetotaller, you volunteer to double check the order, collect all the 'lost and found' things, make peace when things get boorish, nod profusely when the conversations get “deep”, check on folks who lock themselves up in the rest room, give water to the dehydrated, take care of the tips, and finally herd people into their respective autos/taxis late in the night. We are ever so grateful for all your sober services but do you really have to order those mocktails?

I mean that thing named ‘Designated Appletini’ is actually Tropicana mixed fruit juice in a funny shaped glass. ‘Queens Punch’ is Nimma soda. No one should be paying 350 rupees (plus tax) for Nimma soda. That too from the drinks budget. Seriously, don’t be that guy!

If the real reason you order mocktails is for the selfies, please go kill yourself. Just eat a holy religious book of your choice and choke on it and die. No blood. No gore. It’s very elegant. If you want to take it slow, go to a forest and handcuff yourself to a tree and throw away the key and starve to death. That would be interesting too.

Or even better, you can sign up to my new web based start-up www.dropmypiano.in. Just give us your name, email and mobile number. Specify a place and a time and we’ll drop a grand piano on your head. Money back guarantee if you don’t die!

May 1, 2014

To pee, or not to pee

To pee, or not to pee, that is the question –

It’s been hours. The pressure was building up. So is regret over the recent glass of sugarcane juice with ice. But for the moment, things are in control.

I looked for a proper place to mind my business. The footpath was the first thing that came to my mind. Why? I don’t know why. It's my male instincts perhaps. Humans have been shaped by millions of years of evolution to relieve themselves on a tree trunk and walk away as if no one noticed. That's who we are. (Of course, by humans I mean human males)

Now some people consider doing it 'out in the open' like that a disgusting habit. I understand why they feel that way. Just step out of your house for half an hour anywhere in this country, you'll see a Desi Dude urinating on a wall. That wall is part of someone's house. A house with TV serial sounds, filter coffee smells, Sai Baba calendars and an old women in the living room.

But that makes no difference to the Desi Dude. The Desi Dude doesn't give a shit. As far as number one is concerned, Desi Dude is like Tuco from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

 
"Don't be that guy! Things are still in control. There is enough time to find a proper place", the rational part of my brain assured me. I walked past a row of independent houses combed apart by narrow lanes. I could sense a public toilet fifty yards away.

Now public toilets are not for the faint-hearted or the sensitive-nosed. I am both. This one was like a fortified castle with a protective moat. Except that the castle is a modest PWD construction with questionable water supply. And the moat is filled with unidentified organic material in various stages of decomposition.

After inspecting the toilet from a safe distance, the idea of peeing on a stranger’s house sounded more appealing. Moments like these make me feel thankful for being male. Being a man is clearly better than being a woman. It is considered rude to say it out loud but that is the truth. We have outdoor options!

I searched for an appropriate wall, preferably one that belonged to the Central Government. Why the Central Government? I don't know. Instincts again. Pissing on the Central Government seemed like a right thing to do.

And so I did. It was a good spot. No street lighting and right next to the staircase where everyone spits. I stood under the starlit sky amidst croaking toads, fluttering moths and cricketing crickets. And sprayed my Mountain Dew coloured wizz on the concrete wall. Blisssss.

Okay, before you start judging me with the usual 'Being an educated person blah blah blah-muppaavala...' let me assure you that this has nothing to do with my education. It is human nature. When people have a choice between the responsible thing to do and the convenient thing to do, they always do the convenient thing.

Imagine you're on your way to the grocery store. You're in the parking lot. You put on your helmet and then realized that you forgot to carry the jute bag. Do you go back to the apartment to get the jute bag? No way!

You know that's the responsible thing to do but you have to take off the helmet, park the bike in a corner, wait for the elevator, go to the fourth floor, unlock your house, search for the jute bag, lock your house again... It’s too much effort. It's not difficult. It is inconvenient. You'd rather pay the grocer two rupees extra for a polythene bag. We all do.

Or look at weddings. There are a thousand guests at the reception. And everyone gets their own little half a litre bottle of Bisleri. What the fuck is happening there? It's a sanitized wedding hall. With food, flowers, family and friends. Not an RTC bus. We can drink water there. The caterer is already serving 24 items in steel buckets using steel ladles. He can surely handle a few more steel jugs and steel glasses.

But he doesn't. Because it is extra work. The glasses have to be washed, dried, counted, stacked and maintained. Thankless work. Because there is always an off chance that some fussy wedding guest will find a little smudge inside a glass and make a big deal out of it.

The caterer doesn't want to take that risk. The bride's father doesn't want to deal with that shit. And so 3000 bottles of plastic are permanently buried in mother earth's belly. All of them from a single wedding party.

The wedding lasts for 2 days. The marriage, maybe for 40 years but the plastic? 50,000 years! That's not a very bright thing to do as a species. But it is convenient.

You cannot argue against convenience. We rarely face situations where we have to choose between good and evil in the course of our boring lives. Most of our choices are between responsibility and convenience.

Standing in the queue at the RTO office is responsible. Hiring an agent who will “manage” the process is convenient. Exercising regularly is a responsibility. Sitting on the couch and ordering pizza is convenience. Paying attention to human beings in the room is polite. Staring into our phones is convenient.

Speaking the truth may be the right thing to do. But lying to avoid awkward situations is convenient. Being nice to a stranger requires empathy. Being an asshole is incredibly convenient.

Chasing your dreams is risky. Holding on to that job is convenient. Risking rejection in a relationship takes balls. Stalking the girl online is convenient. Doing something about issues we care about is hard work. Twitter is convenient. Speaking out against injustice is the right thing to do. Silence is convenient.

Selfishness is convenient. Peer pressure is convenient. Giving up our privacy for an online discount coupon is convenient. Sending kids to IIT coaching is convenient. Times of India is convenient. Corruption is convenient. Hypocrisy is convenient. Consumerism is convenient. Patriotism is convenient. Obedience is convenient. Status quo is convenient!

And that is why the Desi Dude pees on the road. It has nothing to do with his education, qualification, culture, sun sign or conscience. Peeing on the road happens to be ridiculously convenient. I am not kidding. If women could, they totally would!

For the record, I am not condoning unabashed public urination. One should not pee on someone's house. I don't encourage that at all. I myself try not to. But if it is very very urgent and there are no good toilets around, what else are we supposed to do?

Convenience is the real enemy.

April 25, 2014

Laundry Day - Documentary Short


P.S: Watch it in full screen and, if possible, on HD

April 22, 2014

Earth Day Message from C2

February 16, 2014

The Toothpaste Conspiracy Theory

You going to the neighbour's kitchen?

Yes, I smell Mangalore style fish curry.

Can you get me some toothpaste?

What?

I asked if you could get some toothpaste on your way back.

Why should I get it?

I'm out of toothpaste. I thought I'll borrow some just for the day.

You go get it yourself. I don't like stealing things.

You steal food all the time!

That is different.

How is it different?

It's different because you're a human. And I'm a cat.

That is why I asked you to sneak in through their kitchen window, walk up to the attached bathroom and get the toothpaste. You can put it back in the same place once I am done.

Sorry I can't steal toothpaste. It's against my principles.

Stealing is not against your principles.

Stealing is not but toothpaste is. I don't believe in toothpaste.

What is there to “believe” in a toothpaste?

Why do you need toothpaste?

To brush my teeth.

Exactly. I don't believe in that.

You don't believe in brushing?

No. I am not against brushing. You should brush your teeth. Humans have always brushed their teeth. Not with the modern plastic bristled brushes you use today but with Neem twigs, rough cloth, pieces of leather, something or the other. Brushing is useful. Brushing is important. I am just not convinced about toothpaste.

Why?

Look at the statistics:


Correlation doesn't imply causality. Bad dental health in modern societies is because of the exceptionally high starch and sugar (and cola) content in our diet which our hunter-gatherer genes have not evolved to handle.

Alright, let me make an economics argument then:


What is this, a new conspiracy theory?

I'm not saying it is a conspiracy but think about it. In the last 20 years alone toothpaste companies have made your toothpaste green, blue, red, pink, orange, mint, peppermint, spearmint, vanilla mint, fennel, cinnamon, clove. They made it a transparent gel, half-gel half-paste, multi-flavored, multi-layered, multi-textured, added crystals, added fluoride, added sugar, added salt, added activated charcoal, bleaching agents, glycerin and a lot of other chemicals along with the the extra goodness of natural herbal extracts and then started removing them one by one saying sugar-free, low fluoride, no artificial colors, no artificial flavors, no non-veg, no crystals, no glycerin, no bleaching agents... what exactly is going on there?

Do you really need those advertisements having futuristic dentist labs with transparent touchscreen control rooms, college boys with low self-esteem, hot chicks with creepy sparkling teeth, ocean surfing stunts, concerned mothers, lazy fathers, four out of five dentists, 3D graphics, sciencey jargon and that forever-alone germ?

What forever-alone germ?

hehe

Here's a fun fact. The toothpaste actually plays a very marginal role in your oral hygiene.

Marginal role?

Yeah, it is the physical action of the brush against your teeth that does all the cleaning. Scientific studies have shown that any abrasive agent like rock salt or activated charcoal will work just as fine as any toothpaste in the world.

So The toothpaste doesn't matter?

The toothpaste doesn't matter.

All that foam?

Totally non-functional.

The blue crystals?

Just a placebo.

The 24 hour freshness guarantee?

It's a bamboozle.

The sugarcane-ripping, green-apple biting strong teeth?

Total humbug.

Mouthwash?

An outright hoax.

Damn it!

I know.

That explains all the advertising. If the toothpaste companies do not advertise as aggressively as they do, we will all go back to a no toothpaste world and it would make no difference whatsoever.

Some things exist only because they sound good in an advertisement.

That is true.

I was going through your kitchen stuff the other day. There was a jar of Boost and it had some weird tasteless yellow and blue crystals in it. The label says that they are “Envita nutrients that give you 3X stamina”. Now I’m not an expert on nutrition but that sounds like bullshit. I mean how is something blue in color even edible?

You licked my Boost?

I do it all the time. Here's the interesting thing. I ripped apart a packet of Surf Excel. And even that had little blue crystals in it. In fact, the same shade of blue. And the same weird taste as well. The label says that they are “power surfactants that remove the toughest of stains” and I was thinking, “Wow… these are some versatile crystals!”

They're everywhere, G2. Facewash, toothpaste, soap, chewing gum, ice-cream, shampoo, shaving gel, energy drink powder... these blue crystals are everywhere.

I know. Procter & Gamble is using these blue crystals like Mallus use coconut.

Why are humans working on improving soap and toothpaste like it holds the key to the cure for cancer? Haven't you, as the most intelligent species ever to walk the earth, noticed that a "New & Improved Formula" makes NO DIFFERENCE whatsoever?

We know but advertising is not exactly a democratic medium. People don't get to choose the ads they want to watch.

I mean why can’t all humans arrive at a consensus saying, “Look. I think we have improved toothpaste enough. We don't really need green tea flavored toothpaste. Let’s put our limited energy and natural resources towards solving more important problems.”?

Oh, that's not gonna happen. It goes against the very logic of advertising. They're in the business of making us buy things we don't need with money we don't have. It is their duty to throw that shit.

You know what, you should protest against this system. Show them the finger. Boycott toothpaste. It'll be fun.

No, I'm not boycotting toothpaste.

You should.

Get out of here!

What is the big deal? Even Gautama Buddha never used toothpaste. Is he not worthy of emulating?

Sure... I'll meditate but I'm not giving up toothpaste.

He meditated under the Bodhi tree for 49 days. Do you think he took breaks in between to brush his teeth twice a day? No. He would have never achieved enlightenment if he listened to his dentist!

I am not eliminating toothpaste from my life.

You know who else never used toothpaste?

Prophet Mohammad?

Yeah... yeah... the prophet too (peace be upon him) but let's not go there.


Disclaimer: No toothpaste tubes were stolen in the making of this post.

January 17, 2014

Don't be that guy - Jan

Don’t be that guy who thinks street food is unhealthy

Our parents, teachers, doctors and other noble professionals right from our childhoods told us that street food is not good for our health and that we should not eat pani puri, bhel puri, masala batani, samosas, kachoris, bajjis, peanuts, bhutta, pieces of raw mango, amla, pineapple and guava on the roadside because they might be unhygienic.

Yes, it is true. We would be better off by completely avoiding them but what we have done is we replaced the unhygienic roadside food with a more hygienic combo of Lays, French fries, kaati rolls, burgers, and aerated drinks at fast food joints and there lies the irony.

The worst thing that can happen to you if you eat pani puri of questionable integrity is an upset stomach and maybe a little inconvenience to roommates/family members for a couple days. That is it. It is completely treatable and our immunity system may even get a little robust in the process but regular consumption of processed foods like chips, French fries and colas give us obesity, makes us susceptible to heart disease, diabetes, kidney problems...

You see the difference?

If you eat pani puri twice a day for five days in a row, your body tells you're doing too much pani puri. Your stomach makes a 'I-have-a-bad-feeling-about-this' noise on the sixth day and you'll automatically stay away from it for a few weeks. There is no such biological red signal for too much Pepsi.

Street food is unhygienic. Fast food is unhealthy.

Middleclass doublethink

Don't be that guy who drives a super bike in the city

Just because your bike can go from 0 – 60 in 5.2 seconds doesn't mean you should do it on Bannerghatta Road. Dude, don't get me wrong. The bike your father gifted you can zoom at 220 KMPH on an abandoned airstrip and that is awesome. It literally inspires awe in my mind.

Having said that, I feel it is my duty to point out that on city roads you come across as a source of attention-seeking noise pollution. You may want to work on that. The way you startle uncles on Honda Activas by overtaking them in your typical rich kid my-dad-has-connections-so-I-can-hit-and-run-and-no-one-will-arrest-me driving style doesn't help at all. You may want to work on that too.

Don’t be that guy thinks anyone who hasn’t shaved in 2 weeks is depressed

No, they aren't. They're just too lazy to shave.

Don't be that guy who promptly changes the date at midnight

It's the next day only when
i) You have slept and woke up
OR
ii) There is sunlight

Don't be that guy who tells the driver how to drive

This happens a lot doesn't it?

Some people just instinctively take that responsibility to critique the driver, constantly giving him constructive feedback and instructions to the driver... “overtake the bus” “nice turn” “ikkada left” “speed breaker” “switch to the right lane” “now slow down...” “look at that asshole!” “horn kottu.. horn kottu” “put 4th gear” “goyya undi choosuko” “Tchah! We would've crossed the bridge by now if you switched to the right lane then.” ...

Self-appointed captains of the ship these people are. And while parking or reversing... the only time when the driver actually needs his help, they're on their dumb phones!

Don’t be that guy who dislikes cats because they are not loyal

Okay, what makes you think that animals should be loyal to humans?

Why do humans deserve loyalty from animals? Look at what you are doing to us. There are barely any large mammals left on the planet. Those that are still alive are imprisoned in “National parks” and “Forest reserves” where you poach them one by one. You kill them for their fur, for their horns, for their teeth, for their ivory, for their skin, for their balls and sometimes just for fun. These things are not even required for your survival! That is why animals in what you call "the wild" don’t trust you.

And look at the lives of animals that obey you. Bulls for instance have evolved in nature to graze all day in large groups on open grasslands occasionally defending themselves from a hunting tiger or a pack of wolves. You domesticated them and for the last ten thousand years, you’ve been cutting off their balls, making them plough your fields, pull your carts and generally torturing them for your needs from the moment they are born to the day their bodies are too old for that kind of slavery. And after you extract everything from them, you replace them with the next generation. It’s the same story with chicken, horses, pigs, sheep, donkeys and pretty much every species that is obedient to humans. This process gets unimaginably horrifying with the rise of mechanized food production. This is what happens to animals when they trust you.

Dogs are the only species to have benefited from showing loyalty to humans. Dogs not your best friends. They are your only friends. The rest of the animal community considers them back-stabbing sons of bitches anyway.
Hey, we don't use that sort of language on this blog.
What? All dogs are either bitches or sons of bitches. It's biology!


Psst. Check this out - http://win.blogadda.com/view-blogs-voting/humor_satire/gtoosphere/

January 6, 2014

Clockwork C2

Why is there so much time around?

Time? Who has time?

I mean information about time. Why are there so many devices that tell you the time all the time?

There is an alarm clock by your bed, another clock on the wall behind the alarm clock. In fact there is a clock in every room of your house and also in your phone, tablet, Kindle, camera and computer screen; on every photo, email, status, tweet, pin, scrap, fork, and cart; on your wrist watches, car dashboards, FM radios, mp3 players, TV channels, DVD players; in every shop, restaurant, public place, traffic signal and heck even on refrigerators, microwave ovens, and induction stoves!

It is almost impossible to look anywhere and not see a clock. You are a species of obsessive time-keepers!

That is because we have so little of it.

If there is one thing that everyone… humans, cats, dogs, trees… has equal amounts of, it is time. All have 24 hours in a day.

Yeah but between a coconut tree, a pet cat, and a human being, the human has much more things to do. We can't afford to waste much time.

But you waste so much time! And other people's time too. And you're always ten minutes late for everything.

Hey, I am always exactly ten minutes late, okay? That is punctual but just off the mark. That consistency deserves some credit, don't you think?

That “just off the mark” is what your boss calls “always late”. Why can't you make a small adjustment to your daily routine?

It's not that easy. I tried. I set my watch to run ten minutes faster. Setting the watch was easy but believing in it was difficult because my phone is synced with the network time. So I set my phone 10 minutes fast. And then I realized I had to set my computer too. And then my office computer and my tablet and my Kindle and...

Wow, you did that?

Yeah. I set all my clocks 10 minutes fast and tried to follow my new personal clock but these social networking apps just won’t let me. When someone just replied to a tweet, the twitter app would show it as “10 minutes ago”. Every time I try to really believe in something, the internet ruins it instantly. Soon I was mentally subtracting ten minutes every time I looked at my watch. The whole purpose is defeated.

You never fail to fail.

In my defense, my failure was inevitable. Those days are over. My grandfather had only two clocks – his wrist watch and another “grandfather” clock. If my grandfather wanted to get more punctual, all he had to do was to set both his clocks ten minutes fast and believe in it. That's it. It was that simple for him. But it's much more complicated now.

It's weird... this human obsession for precise time-keeping.

What do you mean weird?

It's not natural. I mean cats don't believe in it. I rely on the sights and sounds of nature to keep track of time. The sparrow's morning invitation that says “bite me”, the warmth of the sunlight in the afternoon when I nap near the kitchen window, the secretive squeaks of mice as they pore through your trash at midnight... these are the things that tell me the time. We rely on our instincts.

Yes, wearing a watch is unnatural for cats. If I saw a cat wearing a watch, I'd shit in my pants and call the Army. But what is unnatural for cats is not necessarily unnatural for humans.

What about your great-grandfather? He didn't have much use for a clock. He probably just followed the rhythms of nature just like cats.

Humans for thousands of years before him kept track of time only through the natural cycles of day and night, the movement of the sun, moon and constellations in the sky. They didn't care about the exact time. It didn't matter whether it was 6:40 AM or 7:20 AM. It was just “morning” but seasons mattered a lot. They anxiously watched out for the signs of changing seasons, growth of plants and migration of birds. What they did on a typical summer day was vastly different from what they did on a spring day which was completely different from how they chilled during Kaartheeka Maasam. That is what I call natural.

That is a very vague definition of natural.

Forget about the definitions. I'll tell you what is not natural: Your life where you are stalked, hounded, judged, chided, rigidly monitored, intimidated and enslaved by your own clocks. That is not natural.

Oh come on, it's not as bad as you make it seem.

I'm telling you... clocks are the real masters of mankind.

That is bullshit.

Oh yeah? Who woke you up in the morning?

I woke up by myself...

Abba cha!

...with some generous help from four different alarms.

See! You begin your day by begging the clock for 20 more minutes of snooze time. When you eventually wake up, the clock reminds you that you have overslept by 14 minutes and makes you feel guilty about it.

For the record, I never feel guilty about too much sleep.

Do you wake up moments before your alarm clock actually goes off?

Sometimes...

Do you know why?

I don't know... I never thought about it.

It's fear.

Fear?

Yes, fear. All your life, you've been conditioned to wake up afraid of being late to work or school or some other appointment. Your day begins exactly at 9:10 AM. Then you have a 5 minute shower, make “2 minute” noodles and catch the 9:40 bus for a “25 minute” commute to reach office exactly 10 minutes late for the meeting that starts precisely at 10:30 AM every morning. Everything you do... what you do, when you do, how to do it is all dictated by The Clock.

At least I don't sleep when it is time to sleep.

I'll give you credit for that but don't you see bigger picture?

You eat lunch not when you are hungry but because it is time for lunch. Students open their books not out of interest or curiosity but because there isn't much time before the exams. Parents want their daughters to get married early because they think she is running out of time.

People go to the gym and run for exactly 30 minutes till a beeper announces that their workout is over. Friends try to wish each other on their birthdays at the stroke of midnight. You make resolutions to exercise, read, and spend more time with loved ones not because you feel from within that you should become a better person but because it is that time of the year when everyone makes resolutions. No wonder they all crash in the first two weeks. The list is endless.

Thank you. Happy new year to you too!

So how did you end up like this?

We invented clocks for obvious reasons

Yeah but in those days, each city had its own time based on local sunrise and sunset cycles.

It changed with the industrial revolution. It made transportation faster and with it, synchronization of clocks became very important especially for the railways. It was so important that the British govt. passed a law in 1880 that required all timetables in Britain to follow the single time of Greenwich. It was the first time in human history that the population of an entire country was obliged to live by an artificial clock.

It is the norm now.

Trust me, it feels completely “natural”. The assembly lines along which modern industries are organized also require thousands of employees and machines to work in tandem following precise timetables. From those modest beginnings, the whole world eventually got tuned to GMT.

Unfortunately the assembly line mentality was not limited to industrial production only. It percolated into almost every sphere of human activity. Strict timetables are imposed on schools, hospitals, restaurants, prisons and everything else. Scientists are even debating if we should really follow the movement of the earth around the sun for our time.

That is the story of humanity. You just keep withdrawing from nature at every step. You biologically evolved to be hunter-gatherers in open grasslands and moderately dense forests. Then you domesticated animals, figured out agriculture, invented the wheel, learned to extract metal, started trading and ended up living in towns and cities so that you don't have to depend on the wilderness for food.

The Industrial Revolution and faster communication channels implied that your reach is not limited by geography. Air conditioning and other things ensured that you don't have to care about the weather or the seasons either.

You reached a stage where you eat genetically modified organisms, drink corn-sugar solutions in plastic bottles and live in houses with smooth monochromatic surfaces and right angles. The end result is a life devoid of organic experiences. A life that involves an endless loop of waiting for weekends and then wondering where the hell it went!

Finally when the body and mind complain about the dreadful monotony of rigid timetables under the tyranny of clocks, you realize you need to take some time off to “unwind”... much like rusty old CLOCKS!

I don't like the way you say clocks anymore.

The idea of a modern vacation is itself quite funny. It is not a coincidence that the most popular holiday spots – mountains, beaches, lakes and the countryside – are places with the least number of clocks.

What is your ideal holiday? Let me guess. You wake up when you feel like waking up. You eat when you are hungry. You stare at the clouds, hear the birds, smell the flowers and feel the fleeting wind all at once. Your senses are working at their peak capacity.

You lose track of time. You do things that excite you, maybe even things that exhilarate you. You introspect and try to make meaningful connections with your identity, religion, people, and nature. Just in a short while, you begin to feel really alive, momentarily free from the clock. You wonder why you don't do this more often.

But not for long because time flies, especially when you are on a low budget 3 days-2 nights package holiday. And then your holiday comes to an abrupt end with the hotel charging half a day's extra rent for overshooting the check out time by 35 minutes.

Welcome to The Clock!