Nerdist

Outsourced Blog Post

by Chris Hardwick on January 26, 2009

If you read my last Wired article you know that Tim Ferriss turned me onto the idea of outsourcing menial clerical work to a virtual assistant in another country. My initial idea of this was that I was writing to some Fourth World region to a bank of shoeless indigents working in a mud hut in front of pneumatic tubes that would spit out random orders near some kind of smelly lemur situation and a lake of diarrhea. Then I came back to reality and quickly gave myself a Dutch Oven under my dog’s blanket as a punishment for temporary douchery. As you may have guessed, they were not Fourth World at all and, in fact, the quality of the assistants was fantastic. The only problem was, I couldn’t think of anything for them to do. THEN I couldn’t think of anything to blog about. DO YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING??? It occurred to me that they were contractually bound to answer anything I asked.  Problem A meet Problem B and make a baby. My first round of questions were admittedly tame, but in future “Outsourced Blog Posts” I intend to crank up the weirdness level to Delicatessen.

Where are you located?

I am a resident of Hyderabad, India. I was born and brought up in Hyderabad.

What did you have for breakfast?

Today I had Dosa for breakfast. It is delicious and crispy and takes in less oil hence light and good for health. Normally we have it twice a week or more. The way it is prepared is as follows:

Regular dosa batter is made from rice and split, skinned urad bean (black lentil) blended with water and left to ferment overnight. A modified form of the same batter can be used to make idlis.

Characteristically the rice is very finely ground, more so than in idli batter. Furthermore, the rice to lentil ratio varies in both. The rice can be uncooked and/or parboiled. The urad bean and rice can be replaced with highly refined wheat flour to make a maida dosa or semolina for a rava dosa.

The batter is then ladled in small amounts onto a hot greased tava, where it is spread out into a thin circle and fried with oil or ghee until golden brown. The dosa may then be folded in half and served or rolled as in a wrap, but in both cases it is cooked on a single side. Alternatively, it may be flipped to cook on the other side and then served.

If you could be an animal, what would you be?

If I could be an animal, I would be a dog. Because dog is a faithful animal, its faithful among almost all the animals and its not sneaky and dishonest. So, its well treated by human beings and also its cute & sweet. If I would have been a dog, I can even be treated as  a cop by helping the cops in the investigations of certain cases. Hence, I can be highly respected and also its impossible for people to bring out some evidences into light without their help and eventually dogs are helpful for the government.

Dogs can be trained soon as they are very catchy when compared to other animals. So, I can act in movies and help my master by earning some money in that way and also can be helpful for any disabled or old people when they are in need of someone who can help them while crossing roads, running errands and while doing some things like that.

Dogs are lovable, cool and nice when we pet them, they are very friendly and makes their masters feel that they are being cared and loved. I feel that they are trustworthy then human beings in some aspects as they cannot cheat and remain honest through our their life. They also have emotions as human beings do and can understand our feelings better  sometimes which makes the petters feel that they have a perfect friend. That also makes us forget that its just an animal and we start treating them as a friend or a family member. They love us very much in response to our love.

Describe, in your own words, each of the following films in one sentence:

FLETCH – It’s not all about wacky disguises and goofy aliases. At its core, the film is a top notch mystery thriller.

THE MATRIX- Consequences of artificial intelligence taking over mankind, if the development is handled inappropriately.

TRON- Tron is loaded with the latest visual effects in a medieval epic.

BACK TO SCHOOL- Easily Dangerfield’s best movie–for what that’s worth and hilarious.

BETTER OFF DEAD- Best possible picturization of a convict’s mindset.

Well, this was fun. I’ve never had Dosa, I don’t know when dogs actually become very catchy and I’m sure that Better Off Dead wasn’t about a convict (unless there was actually a meta-movie going on that I didn’t pick up on). Also, I am creeped out to know that my dog, Scott, thinks of me as a “petter” but  thrilled that Dangerfield can rest peacefully knowing that “Thornton Melon” made such a huge impact in Hyderabad. All in all, I’d say the fill-in work done by my virtual assistant was far superior to the work of that little asscrack Billy when he takes over “Family Circus.”