Crystal Blur

Yavakridaaa

2011-06-26T21:54:00.000-04:00

Grad student 1: “One of the visiting scholars has arrived Guruji.”

Dr. Bharadwaj: “What already? I thought they were coming next week. Argh! My appointment papyrus is messed up. My son can show them around. Let’s see, what do I have scheduled for the afternoon? Here it is … some grad student’s final defense. Ah good, nothing important. I will meet the scholars in the afternoon.”

Grad student 1 runs around looking for his mentor’s son (Yavakrida) and finds Yava pestering the new grad students.

Grad student 1: “The visiting scholar is here and Guruji would like you to show them around the ashram.”

Yavakrida (groan!): “Oh alright! Where is he?”

Yavakrida grudgingly makes his way to greet the scholar.

Ramananda (R): “Hello, my name is Ramananda, I’m here to meet Dr. Bharadwaj.”

Yavakrida (Y): “Yes, I am Dr. Bharadwaj’s son. My name is Yavakrida.”

R: “Nice to meet you Yavakrida.”

Y: “No, no, you are not pronouncing it correctly.”

R: “Okay, so how is it pronounced?”

Y: “It’s Ya…repeat it after me…ya.”

R: “Ya.”

Y: “Va”

R: “Wa”

Y: “No, it’s va not wa, you have to bite your lips while saying va, unlike while saying wa your mouth forms the shape of a lotus bud. Got it? Va!”

Ganapati (G): “It’s just a friggin name. Can we move on with the story?”

Vyasa (V): “And what would you know about having your name incessantly mispronounced, Mr. No V in my name so I don’t care?”

G: “Good God, quit being so sensitive.”

V: “So as I was saying…or rather Yavakrida says.”

Y: “Va!”

R: “Wah!”

Two hours later.

Y: “Okay you can work on the va some more later.”

R (sarcastically): “Oh, you bet. In fact I will clear my evening schedule for it.”

V: “Ganapati, stop fudging my script.”

G: “I am just giving it some normalcy. I am sure some readers will identify with R’s feelings.”

V (pinching the bridge of his nose): “Just write.”

Y: Next is kree.”

R (exasperated): “Kri”

Y: “No it is kree. Listen to the pitch carefully. Kree.”

R: “Kreeeeeee.”

Y: “Okay, now it is too much. You have to rein it in a bit.”

R: “Kree.”

Y: “Good! And finally dah! You have to emphasize on the last bit, daahhhhhh!”

G: “Why do parents keep naming their kids with such complicated names? In the good old days of Ramayana, people had sensible names like Ram, Sita, Luv, Kush. Simple and beautiful. But now they have these insanely long names.”

V: “There are merits to long names. The kids learn half the alphabets just memorizing the names.”

G: “Ah! Good point.”

Y: “Put it all together and it is Yavakridaah! Go on say it.”

R (in a tired voice): “Yavakrida…”

Yavakrida gives encouraging looks.

R (taking the hint): “daaah!”

Y: “Yes! Now was that so hard? Pronouncing the name correctly, is a simple gesture to show respect for your fellow humans, wouldn’t you agree Ravindra?”

R: “My name is Ramananda.”

Y: “Whatever! The point I make is very important. It is crucial to get the pronunciation of the names exactly right.”

Chapter 13: Sagar's seven (Part 3 of 3)

2011-06-20T22:18:00.000-04:00

Previously on Sagar’s seven here

Vyasa: “The bandits have a small lead but they knew that it wouldn’t take too long for the guards to catch up.”

Sagar: “Boys, it won’t take too long for the guards to catch up.”

Bandit 1 bites fingers.

Sagar: “But don’t worry, I had it all planned out. Shiru should be waiting for us with getaway horses down this road.”

Sure enough good old Shiru was patiently waiting for Sagar and the bandits.

Bandits: “You are the man Shiru!”

The bandits hop onto the horses with the loot and head into the forest as they hear a distant gallop of the guards giving chase.

The guards are hot on the bandits’ trail. The bandits manage to put some distance between the guards and themselves by taking a secret pathway in the hilly terrain. After riding for a considerable amount of time the bandits are exhausted. Night befalls upon them but they keep moving. Finally, out of sheer exhaustion the bandits decide to take refuge in an ashram they come across along the way. They sneak into the ashram, grab clothing from the clothing lines and find an empty room to hide.

The guardsmen give a relentless chase. The squad is lead by a courageous general, two veteran soldiers and two rookies.

Rooky 1: “This is so exciting. We are on a live mission!”

Rooky 2: “Man, I have been collecting souvenirs all along the way. Mom is going to love it.”

The chase leads to an ashram. General reads the name of the ashram. “Mandavya’s Academy” is carved in big bold letters at the entrance.

General: “Okay, I know this guy. He is some kind of yogic mentor. We have to be very careful. This is the grant deadline week. The mentors are a bit psychotic during this time. So what is the first thing you do when you encounter a yogic mentor that you want to take under your custody?”

General quizzes the rookies.

Rookies in chorus: “Take control of the water source.”

General: “Good. At least the academy didn’t send me total nut jobs this year. The vets will scour the ashram for the goons; rookies come with me to the mentor’s cottage. Let’s roll.”

All in chorus: “Sir yes sir!”

The general moves towards the main cottage where the mentor is burning the mid night oil.

General: “Just as I thought, last minute grant application writing.”

Rookie 1: “Why are we arresting the mentor?”

General: “It is not a coincidence that the trail leads into this ashram. I’m afraid he is our prime suspect. Lack of funding has driven many mentors to creative ways of obtaining funding. Now keep your eyes peeled for any sudden movements.”

Rookies are very impressed by the General and follow him towards the cottage. Three heads peep into the mentor’s cottage through a window and see Mandavya scribbling away, even mumbling at times. The general gives the go signal to the rookies and the three of them storm into the cottage and take control of all the water sources before Mandavya can say what.

Mandavya: “What the?”

General: “You are under arrest.”

Mandavya: “What for? What is this nonsense? I have a deadline to make.”

General: “Playing the fool, I see. Not a very original ploy.”

Mandavya (irritated): “I was finally in the writing zone. And now thanks to you morons I’ve lost the chariot of thought.”

Veteran soldiers walk in with Sagar and the two bandits.

Soldiers: “We found the jewels and the thieves.”

General looks at Mandavya with an amused smile.

General: “Let me guess. You have never seen these men before.”

Mandavya: “As a matter of fact I haven’t.”

General: “Ugh! Arrest all of them.”

Mandavya: “This is unacceptable. I won’t stand for it. I have my rights.”

General: “Oh the rights, I forgot. Soldier, read him his rights.”

Soldier 2: “What rights?”

General: “Exactly!”

Mandavya is now fuming with anger.

General: “Gentlemen, prepare the horses. We are taking the jewelry back to the palace. Bind the thieves, that includes Mandavya and take them all to the King. Let him decide what he wants to do with them.”

General steps out. The vets bind the bandits and carry the loot to the horses. The rookies are left in charge of Mandavya.

Mandavya: “Alright fine, I will come along and settle this matter with the King. Hopefully he has more sense than your General. I just want a sip of water before I come with you.”

Rookie 1: “NO! No water. You come with us now.”

Mandavya: “No need to over react. All I want is a sip of water.”

Mandavya starts reaching for a water bowl.

Rookie 2: “Watch out. Do something!!”

Rookie 1 panics and gives in to his first instinct. He impales Mandavya with a spear and Mandavya falls to his knees. Blood starts gushing out of his stomach. Rookie 2 smacks Rookie 1 in head.

Rookie 2: “What have you done?!”

Rookie 2 runs to the General.

General: “What now?”

Rookie 2: “There has been an accident. Mandavya fell on the spear.”

General: “Fuck me without ghee.”

At the palace.

King Devapann: “Yes! My General has returned. Tell me, did you catch the scum?”

General: “Yes your majesty.”

King Devapann: “Good. And the jewels?”

General: “We have them.”

King Devapann: “Bravo! You and your men have made me proud again.”

General: “Your majesty the mission did not go as smoothly as we’d hoped.”

King Devapann: “Well, nothing a bag of gold coins can’t fix I’m sure.”

General: “Actually, a yogic mentor was involved in the operation.”

King Devapann: “Wait what?! Please tell me you did not piss him off.”

General: “Um…he was impaled…”

King goes face palm. Courtiers gasp.

General: “…in the stomach…”

Courtiers cringe.

General: “…by our soldier.”

King Devapann: “So he is dead.”

General: “Ordinarily, this would be the kind of injury that you succumb to. However, the yogic mentor used his yogic powers to stay alive. He should be here shortly with my soldiers. They are helping him make his way to the court as we speak.”

King Devapann (bites his knuckles): “Somebody punch someone.”

Rookie 2 smacks Rookie 1 on the head and Rookie 1 retorts by punching Rookie 2 in the arm.

General: “Here comes the mentor now.”

Mandavya (in deep pain): “Wa-ter.”

Courtiers: Silent gasps.

Minister: “Somebody get him some wine for his pain.”

Mandavya (gulps some wine and then begins to speak): “I have lived an honest life and yet here I am with my guts spilling out. At first I did not know whom to blame for this unlawful persecution. The soldiers who carried out the act? But they were only obeying their General’s orders. So the General then, but he is only obeying the King who commands him.”

The King gulps.

Mandavya: “But no, I’ll go to the very root of the problem. The problem is systemic. It is the system that needs to be changed. And so I will take it up with Dharma, the one who wrote our laws and constitution.”

King Devapann: “You are so wise.”

Mandavya: “I have a couple of favors to ask.”

King Devapann: “Anything you want.”

Mandavya: “Arrange a ride for me to Dharma’s office and take care of my graduate students.”

King Devapann: “Done and done.”

And so Mandavya was escorted by the General himself. On the way…

Mandavya: “Wa-ter.”

General: “You will get it first thing in Dharma’s office.”

Dharma’s office was an old dingy government office building. Mandavya and the General were greeted by the reception official, a thin old bored woman.

General: “Could we get some water please?”

Reception official / R.O.(never taking her head away from the papyrus about Angallywood she was reading): “No water allowed on government premises.”

General (grinning sheepishly): “Sorry Mandavya.”

Mandavya: “I would like to speak with Dharma.”

R. O.: “Please fill out these papyrus and take a token, you’re lucky the wait will be just under two hours today.”

Mandavya: “What? This is an emergency. Can’t you see I have a spear lodged in my stomach?”

R.O. (looks at Mandavya): “You’re right. What was I thinking? You need to fill in the pink papyrus in addition to the ones I provided. Standard non-liability agreement, in case you kick the bucket on our premises. Surprisingly, it’s more common than you’d think.”

Mandavya (appalled): “This is unacceptable…”

General (interrupts Mandavya in the middle of his tirade and takes Mandavya by the shoulder): “Why don’t you take a seat? I’ll handle this.”

Mandavya sits in the waiting room, fuming with anger, sweat dripping on the binding of the spear. One hour later, Mandavya was escorted into Dharma’s office room.

Dharma: “Come in…Mandavya is it? Yes, I have your papyruses.”

Mandavya: “Look at me! I don’t deserve this. I have lived an honest li…”

Dharma: “Let me see. Impaled with spear for crimes of the highest orders. Murders, 39 of them.”

Mandavya: “What are you talking about? You obviously have the wrong papers.”

Dharma (chuckles): “Oh no, I have the right papers. You’ve killed countless bees, mosquitoes and flies when you were four.”

Mandavya: “What? You’re kidding me!”

Dharma: “Oh no, I’m perfectly serious.”

Mandavya: “How can you accuse me of crimes that I did when I was a child?”

Dharma: “Oh, so I should let you off the hook is it? What about the pain and suffering of the bees and the flies and the mosquitoes? The pain was very real.”

Mandavya (losing it): “I’ve had it with your nonsense. You have no idea what it is to live by these idiotic rules you have created. So I see it fit that as a punishment you live by those very idiotic rules.”

Dharma: “Spare me the melodrama. There is no water allowed on these premises. You can do nothing.”

Mandavya pulls out the spear from his stomach; the spear is soaked in blood and sweat.

Mandavya: “Shit just got real.”

Mandavya then shoots the spear in Dharma’s direction and it lodges into Dharma’s head.

Both Dharma and Mandavya collapse on the floor.

Dharma: “Fuck me without ghee.”

---

After a brief blackout the next thing he knew, Dharma was swimming as fast as he could to beat the million others. The rules of the game were simple, you win you live, you lose you die. In an astonishing feat of swimming, Dharma won.

Dharma: “GOOOAAAALLLLLL!!!”

9 months later, Vichitravirya’s wife Ambalika gave birth to a son. She named him Vidura.

Ganapati: “Woah! The spear action was amazing! Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.”

Ganapati imitates spears being thrown with his trunk. Vyasa smiles.

Chapter 13: Sagar's seven (part 2 of 3)

2011-06-13T12:03:00.068-04:00

Previously on Sagar's seven here

Bandit 1: “Booty squad? Alright I’m in.”
Sagar: “We will hit the palace on the day after the Sweet Sixteen party for the princess. We are going in as the cleaning crew. The booty squad has already penetrated the palace and has been working as the princess’s maids. They have paid off one of the security guards to let us in and out of the palace. But the security guards change shift very often so we have to time this just right. Once inside the palace, we have10 min to get to the bedroom, break into the dressing room, grab the loot and get the hell out of there.”

A soft-skinned lotus eyed woman enters the room and all the men turn their attention to her. Sagar walks over to her.

Sagar: “Booty Queen! I’m glad you made it safely?”
Booty Queen (amused): “How cute? If only I had a gold coin for every patronizing man I met. Anyhow, I’m afraid I don’t have too much time to chit chat. The princess will notice if I am missing for too long. Here is the key to the dressing room. It took me a month to get the copy made. Put it to good use. Good luck.”

Booty Queen leaves as quickly as she had appeared.

Bandit 1 (whistles): “What a woman!”
Sagar (snaps his fingers): “As I was saying. It is very important to not lose focus in the dressing room and leave within the allotted time. Got it? Game on.”

A skinny boy knocks and walks into the room.

Boy: “Shiru is here to meet with you Boss”.
Sagar: “Go over the plan again. I don’t want any mistakes. I’ll be back soon.”

Meanwhile at the palace, King Devapann and his council are discussing Yayati and his saggy balls.

King Devapann: “This is why I don’t go around seducing women along the river banks or in the jungles. It is so risky. How can you trust some random stranger you met at the river bank?”
Minister 1: “To top it off, King Yayati managed to piss off Sukracharya in the grant application season.”
Minister 2: “Yeah, don’t mess with those yogic mentors with their woo water. If you do, your ass is grass.”
King Devapann: “I don’t know what he was thinking. You have to use your common sense to stay out of trouble. If you are the king you can order whoever pleases you to well come to the palace and please you. All this running around behind women like sissies. Where are all the men I say?”

And then King Devapann uttered the famous last words that so many of us have foolishly uttered.

King Devapann: “And running into trouble with yogic mentors? Please that could never happen to me.”

The cruel universe with a twisted sense of humor let out an evil laugh and thought ‘challenge accepted’.

D-day arrives. Sagar, Bandit 1 and Bandit 2 are dressed up as the cleaning crew and haul their cart full of paraphernalia to the main palace gate. At the first security check point the guards screen the goods in the cart and pat down the men to check for concealed weapons. The guards look visibly tired from the late shift of the Sweet Sixteen party. They do a half ass security check of the goods in the cart. The high pitched screaming of teenage girls had taken its toll on the security. The bandit crew makes through the first security check point.

Next they have to go through gate 12B which was the entrance to the dhobi square. The security guard at gate 12B had been paid off to let them through. Sagar spots the guard who in turn gives a slight nod of recognition. Just as the cart gets closer to Gate 12B a burly guard stops the cart.

Burly guard: “Where do you think you are going?”
Sagar: “We are the cleaning crew to clean up after the party. We were told to report to gate 12B.”
Burly guard: “Do you have the work approval scroll?”
Sagar: “Why yes. The work approval scroll.”

Sagar spreads his palm in the direction of Bandit 1.

Bandit 1: “Work approval scroll.”

Bandit 1 spreads his empty palm in the direction of Bandit 2. Bandit 2 scrambles inside the back of the cart and digs out a scroll. Sagar hands it over to the Burly guard. Burly guard inspects the scroll.

Burly guard: “The seal looks authentic. But you are headed in the wrong direction. You have to report to gate 14 first.”

Sagar not wanting to push his luck decides to follow the guard’s instructions and heads to gate 14. After rolling in the direction of gate 14 bandit 1 sneaks a peek at the burly guard. The burly guard stares back at bandit 1. Bandit 1 manages a smile and looks toward gate 14.

Bandit 1: “The guard is still watching us.”
Sagar: “I guess we have to make it through Gate 14 and catch up with the Booty squad…somehow.”

At gate 14 there are 2 guards stationed. They seem to be in a cheerful mood.

Sagar: “Excuse me sir, we are the cleaning crew. We were told report to you.”
Guard 1: “I wasn’t told to let any cleaning crew through today. Do you know about this Jaggu?”
Jaggu: “Nope. No cleaning crew news.”
Sagar: “Well may be there was a mistake in the paper work. The pigeons were sent out at the last minute by the ministry.”
Guard 1: “Well then sucks for you. No orders, no getting in.”

Sagar gives a vacant stare at his accomplices who have equally vacant expressions. An impeccably dressed man walks up to the security to get through.

Guard 1: “Salaam Raoji. Last night was spectacularly managed.”
Raoji: “Thanks. Who are they?” (referring to the crew)
Guard 1: “Cleaning crew. No orders came through for letting them in though. So we are sending them back.”
Raoji: “Oh thank God! I’ve been begging the labor ministry for years. The papyrus work finally went through.”
Guard 1: “You know about this?”
Raoji: “I am not letting you send them back. I desperately need extra hands in there.”
Guard 1: “Okay, so long as it’s not my head on the line.”
Raoji: “I will keep an eye on them personally. Come along boys.”

The bandits can’t believe their luck and start unloading the cart.

Raoji: “Oh no, you won’t need those ghastly bourgeois brands in there. I will give you all the supplies you need. Now hurry along, we don’t have all day.”

Raoji starts walking at a fast pace. Afraid of losing their chance to get in, the bandits run along Raoji’s side.

Raoji: “The guards are always so paranoid. Anyway, we had to get one dozen elephants for last night’s party and they have made a terrible mess in the stables. So I want you to clean up the stables before the western breeze kicks in and starts blowing the ghastly smell into the palace.”

The bandit crew is now reluctantly following Raoji with visions of giant piles of elephant poo.

Raoji: “Here you are. This is where you report to me, in the main servant quarters. Gopal will show you where the supply closet is.”
Booty Fool: “There you are Raoji.”
Raoji (not pleased): “I’m very busy today.”
Booty Fool: “I don’t mean to take up too much of your time. But the princess would like the sheets in her room changed again. The staff put in pink sheets but the princess would much rather have the mauve ones.”
Raoji: “Everyone is busy. Her room was made up to her request. We have a full schedule today, the staff will get to it as soon as they can.”
Booty Fool: “I don’t see these men doing anything. I can take them off your hands.”
Raoji: “They are about to sanitize the stables.”
Booty Fool: “Oh I’m sorry. I will let the princess know that the elephant stables have a higher priority than her room and I am sure she will be very understanding.”
Raoji: “Grrr! Okay fine take them. I don’t have time for this. You three, report to me as soon as you are done with the princess’s room okay?”

Booty Fool starts moving away in the same hurry as Raoji. Bandit crew catches up with Booty Fool.

Bandit 1: “Phew! That was close. We were…”
Booty Fool: “Sshh! Keep some distance behind me, your head low and follow me.”

Booty Fool navigates them through the palatial labyrinth. As they make their way up the stairs Booty Fool confronts the bandit crew.

Booty Fool: “WTF were you doing at Gate 14? I specifically told you to go to Gate 12B.”

Sagar: “Something came up okay. But we made it in didn’t we?”

Booty Fool: “Well hardly. You would be picking up elephant poop if it hadn’t been for me. I will take you to the princess’s room because God knows the Booty Squad wants to get some money and be done with this maid stint. So don’t screw up.”

Sagar: “Don’t worry. We have it under control now.”

Booty Fool: “Alright. Here we are. The dressing room is the first door to the right. Good luck.”

The Bandit crew opens the door to the princess’s bedroom. The three bandits enter the palatial room. Giant windows lined with silk curtains. In the center of the room there is a plush bed with a thousand pillows of different colors and sizes, the bed posts are covered with fresh flowers and the butterfly motif runs through the walls. A fragrant lavender perfume pervades the room.

Bandit 1: “Girls…yeesh!”

The bandits swiftly move to the dressing room. The door is locked. Sagar thrusts his empty hand in front of Bandit 1.

Sagar: “The key.”

Bandit 1 thrusts his hand in front of Bandit 2.

Bandit 1: “The key.”

Bandit 2: “I don’t have it.”

Bandit 1: “What do mean you don’t have it? I gave it to you to keep it safely, remember?”

Bandit 2: “Yes, and I did. It is safely tucked away in the cleaning supplies.”

Sagar: “Are you fucking serious?”

Bandit 1 (smacks Bandit 2 on his head): “You idiot.”

The room reverberates with a mysterious voice: “I-diot”

Sagar: “What the hell was that?”

Bandit 2 stands closer to Bandit 1 and they all look around feeling a bit tense.

Bandit 2: “I heard the palace was haunted. Maybe it’s true.”

Sagar: “Alright, we don’t have time for this superstitious nonsense. But if we don’t figure out how to get through this door soon, we are going to be screwed.”

Mysterious voice (reverberates): “Screwed!”

The bandits are now visibly tense.

Bandit 1: “It’s probably best that we leave.”

Bandit 2: “Should we clean the room before leaving.”

Sagar gives angry stares to Bandits 1 and 2. Suddenly, the bedroom door springs open and two shadowy figures walk in. The bandits quickly grab things closest to them and assume fight poses. Sagar stands on one leg in a coiled position with a pillow in his hand, Bandit 1 points a vase like a sword and Bandit 2 holds a chair over his head. Booty Queen and Booty Luscious enter the door.

Booty Queen: “At ease soldiers.”

Sagar (sheepishly): “Oh thank God.”

Booty Queen: “So everything in order?”

Sagar: “Well…would you happen to have an extra copy of the key to the dressing room?”

Booty Luscious (disgruntled sighs): “I told you they were not reliable.”

Booty Queen (miffed): “It took me one month and some unspeakable favors to get the key forged. One month! And yet here you are without the key. The one key! Alright this is the final time Booty Squad comes to your rescue Sagar. If you fail, I swear we will personally hunt you down.”

Mysterious voice: “Hunt!”

Sagar and the bandits look startled.

Booty Luscious: “Oh relax. It’s the parrot.”

For the first time Sagar and his goons notice a parrot perched up on a ledge in the ceiling.

Booty Queen: “The parrot has the original key on the necklace around his neck. The bastard will only answer to the princess. No matter, I know how to deal with him.”

Booty Queen brandishes a slender wooden tube concealed in her waist band, aims it at the parrot and as soon as she blows into the cylinder a dart darts straight towards the parrot and lodges into the parrot’s neck. The parrot plunges towards the floor as the word “screwed” echo into the room in the same mysterious voice.

Booty Queen and Booty Luscious leave the room and the bandits hustle to get the key. They open the dressing room and furiously pack all the jewels and clothes into the laundry bag that Raoji had so graciously provided.

Sagar: “Wrap it up boys. We are running out of time.”

Bandit 1: “Done, let’s scoot.”

The three walk in a hurry with overstuffed laundry bags.

Bandit 2: “Which way are we going?”

Sagar (pulls out a papyrus): “This way.”

They navigate the palace successfully to get to the gate with the paid off security guard. He lets them out. They hurry out to the cart by Gate 14.

Sagar: “Load the stuff, quickly.”

All of them scamper into the cart. Just when the cart begins to moves, it is stopped. Raoji appears to have caught up with them.

Raoji: “And where do you think you are going?”

Sagar: “Um…”

Raoji: “Is that the laundry in the cart?”

Raoji eyes the cart carefully. One of the overstuffed cloth bags had ripped open to reveal some jewelry.

Raoji: “Is that? Guards! Thieves!”

Sagar: “It’s jail or bail boys.”

Sagar whips the horses into action. The horses speed through the main gate as the guards prepare to give them a chase.

Vyasa: “That’s it for now, come back next week for our next session.”

Ganapati: “What?! You can’t stop now.”

Vyasa: “I can and I will.”

Le Goog's Les Paul

2011-06-10T06:07:00.000-04:00

So Google did its part yesterday, for the innumerable masses trapped in cubicles doing mind numbingly boring (albeit well paying) jobs. In another stroke of genius, Google successfully decreased productivity worldwide by unleashing the Les Paul guitar doodle. Although the guitar doodle probably didn't touch the frenzy set off by the Pacman doodle, it was awesome!

Here be Pirates soundtrack on google guitar doodle:

I quote Jack Black who quotes AC/DC: "We roll tonight ... to the guitar bite ... and for those about to rock ... I salute you."

Rock on Google

Chapter 12: Sagar's seven (part 1 of 3)

2011-06-07T11:14:00.001-04:00

Vyasa (V) is animatedly describing a dramatic drama script that he has been working on to Ganapati (G). G is soaking in every word excitedly because he is a sucker for action drama.

V in his best voice over guy voice: “In a world full of dirty laundry, is there hope? Coming soon to a stage near you. ‘Dhobi Ghat’. There is drama. ‘Hey Bhagwan, mere aakhri safed patloon par tumne ye keechad kyon uchala?’ There is action, ‘I need a washed pair of underwear stat. Dry stupid clothes dry’. There is romance. ‘Blank’. Okay scratch that.”

G: “Heh”

V (continues in a voice over guy voice): “Starring Lint Eastwood. Lint Eastwood voice over: ‘When you decided to wear unwashed undies, you had to ask yourself this question, do I feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?”

G pulls out the quill from his dhoti and revolves it: “Pow pow pow! I love Lint Eastwood!”

V: “Also starring Dinu Washing-ton. Dinu voice ‘I am not going to bury my laundry. My laundry is going to bury me.’ The only way he can survive is by doing more laundry. Also starring, Silk Smitten. Silk Smitten runs jiggling in slow motion.”

G: “Ah! I miss Riverwatch.”

V: “I don’t know man, breaking into Angallywood is tough. The politics…it’s killer but I can still deal with it. My half cousin’s wife’s uncle knows a guy who knows an assistant director. So I am pretty sure I can get around the bureaucracy with nepotism.”

G: “Well played.”

V: “But they kill you with edits and censorship man! They stripped my script to some melodramatic sob story which only a masochist could read through and the ghastly dialogues, it’s like the script is written for a 4 y old, you know a really dumb 4 y old.”

G: “Well you could do the silly stuff until you have a leg in and then once you have some street cred move onto something you would like to do.”

V: “Gah! You’re like my dad. That’s such a sell out mentality. I for one will adhere to my standards. I’m going to think big. I want to break the mould, put it out there.”

G: “Talk to me in five years”.

V: “I was thinking about this drama script called “Dhobi Ghat” where the laundry is a metaphor for life. It doesn’t matter who you are in life. Whether you are a king or a poor grad student, you always have some dirty laundry to do. Sure some people can throw money at the problem, get other people to do their laundry but the problem never goes away. There is always more laundry to do.”

G: “Obviously you have given a lot of thought to laundry”.

V: “And just like in life, with laundry we are confronted with choices. Should you play by the rules set by the clothes retailers on those itchy labels or should you risk it all and dare to wash the dry clean only clothes with the regular clothes? Should you sort the loads by the fabric composition or by color? If by fabric compo then where does the 50% cotton and 50% silk go? You see how I give life’s big questions a new perspective?”

G: “Yeah, mind blowing”

V: “Then there is the issue about color. You’d think it is a clear cut issue here. You should never mix the colored ones with the whites, cause then you are just asking for trouble.”

G: “Woah! Okay that’s going a bit too far”.

V: “We live in a sick world my friend. I had a room-mate once who not only mixed colors with whites, he washed the delicates and cottons together. What are we? Animals?”

G: “No that’s not what I meant. I was alluding to the metaphor…”

V: “Forget about the metaphor. The coolest part about Dhobi Ghat is…you’ll never guess it. Okay ready?”

G: “Please tell me there won’t be any ghastly laundry puns.”

V: “Well of course not.”

G: “Well good.”

V: “Did that take a load off your mind.”

G: “Aargh!”

V: “Okay okay, check it out, for realz this time. Ready? There will be no Dhobi Ghat in the whole story. People are going to expect it and they will keep waiting for it and I won’t give it to them. The movie will end abruptly and leave the audience hanging…like the laundry. I am going to totally go meta on the audience.”

G: “Wow! Is there something else you are looking into for, you know, back-up in case this thing doesn’t take off?”

V: “I don’t know, I probably should. My stuff could be a bit too sublime for Angallywood. When the time comes I might get a regular job, just to pay the bills and such.”

G: “Yeah, good idea. So what about the dissertation?”

V: “Heh! I’ve been procrastinating I must admit. But now is as good a time as any to get back to it. Are you up for it?”

G: “Am I? Let’s do this thing!”

V narrates: “It was high noon. The sun was blazing. The royals and the guards were hung over from last night’s celebrations. The princess’s jewels had still not been taken to the treasury. Sagar the con man had kept the plan simple.”

1 month before...

Sagar: “All we have to do is break into a palace with security system that rivals that of Brahmastra Inc., which was last we tried impregnable. We need to cross the moat with hungry crocodiles, scale the giant wall which is 2000 feet high, get past about 3000 security personnel unnoticed, find the location of princess’s bedroom out of the 349 rooms in the palace, get past the princess and her maids, steal the jewelry and live off the money we make from selling the stash.”

Bandit 1: “This is impossible”.

Sagar: “If by impossible you mean completely possible then yes.”

Bandit 1: “Okay I’m leaving”.

Bandit 2: “Even if we somehow make it in there, are we supposed to carry the whole stash out of the place unnoticed?”

Sagar: “Yeah, ideally.”.

Bandit 1: “And how many men do you think we need to do this job?”

Sagar: “Men? Have you heard of the Booty squad? Together we will be Sagar’s seven!”

Chapter 11: How Yayati got his mojo back

2011-06-05T06:28:00.000-04:00

(Here is a consolidated version of the Twitter episode. It reads like a Twitter feed, so start reading from the bottom.)

gbappa
@vyasagrad Alright jeez. So you don't have a good ending to the story. C u @D'rakshas.

vyasagrad
@gbappa What is with endings? Is it a happy ending? Is it a sad ending? Who cares? Yayati dies of old age and Puru dies of STD. Everybody dies G. That's how all stories end. There are no happy endings. No rainbows and butterflies. Alright?

gbappa
@vyasagrad wait what happens to Yayati and Puru?

vyasagrad
@gbappa The end of chapter 11, meet you @D'rakshas

purutheguru
@yayatithehotty God u r boring. I have some awesome ruling to do so if we can cut through the monologuing and get my youth back it would be great. Kthxbye.

yayatithehotty
@purutheguru Son, you gave me the greatest gift there was. Last year has been amazing. But I have learned there is more to life than sex, alcohol and rock and roll...

(1 year later)

purutheguru
@yayatithehotty, @son1, @son2, @son3 See you at my crowning ceremony suckers.

devyaniscool
@yayatithehotty You disgust me.

yayatithehotty
@purutheguru Alright, since I seem to be running out of options I will take it if you throw in the phone# of the hotty wearing yellow flowers from last nights party.

purutheguru
@yayatithehotty The right to the throne you say? You are on like Hanuman. However, you can has my youth for 1 y only.

yayatithehotty
@purutheguru (aka son4) You are my last hope. Son please, be a man!

son3 has blocked yayatithehotty

son2
@yayatithehotty fwd re:tweet from @son1 :p Also u need a new handle...hotty?!

yayatithehotty
@son2 fwd tweet for @son1

son1
@yayatithehotty No dad, your kingdom is not worth the saggy balls.

yayatithehotty
@son1 Son, I once more have the urge to taste the nectar of youth.Would you be willing to trade your youth for the right the rule the kingdom.

(15 years later.Yayati's 4 sons have grown into horny young teens and Yayati is a horny young teen at heart).

yayatithehotty
@sukracharya OK fine pwn3d my ass. I'm begging you...gimme my mojo back. #cbmb

yayatithehotty
@sukracharya I LOL @ ur curse. If anything the gray hair makes me look dignified. Wait what's happening with my balls? #cbmb

Sexy Sarmishta
@yayatithehotty Great! I'm preggers too...there goes my figure #cbmb

sukracharya
@yayatithehotty Curse u Yayati, I missed the grant deadline thnx 2 all this family drama. Prepare 2 be old and mojoless #cbmb

yayatithehotty
@devyaniscool Ur pregnant! But more importantly, u told on me? Not cool!

Devyani Iscool
@sukracharya I HATE YOU!!! All u care about is ur stoopid grants & research. FYI, I’m preggo and Yayati cheated on me with Sarmishta #CBMB

sarmishtasposse
@sexysarmishta Who sleeps with my bff and cheats on devyani? PINK FLOWERED YELLOW PANTS! #cbmb

sarmishtasposse
@sexysarmishta Oh no U didn't! Deets pls

yayatithehotty
@devyaniscool Looks like the dhobi mixed up the laundry again...nothing to be suspicious about...he he...I looooove you...<3 <3 :* #cbmb

yayatithehotty
@sexysarmishta Crap! 2 words for you...direct messages #cbmb

devyaniscool
@sexysarmishta And how would you know? #cbmb

sexysarmishta
@yayatithehotty Were they yellow with pink flowers? #cbmb

yayatithehotty
Is mourning the loss of his favorite underpants. @devyaniscool Get off twitter and look for them already. #cbmb

sukracharya
Hi. This is the Sukracharya. I just joined.

devyaniscool
@sukracharya Daaadd! Sarmishta is flirting with Yayati. Make it stop. #cbmb

sexysarmishta
@yayatithehotty You were looking sexy at the river bank yesterday, have you been working out? #cbmb

sexysarmishta
@devyanisposse Hi Devyani, what's up with the new ID? #cbmb

devyanisposse
@sexysarmishta @sarmishtasposse @devyaniscool Devyani so doesn't have a mustache. Devyani, as her ID states, is cool. #cbmb

crystalblur
I have 1 from the internet. Q: Why do most gay men have mustaches? A: To hide their stretch marks.

vyasagrad
@gbappa Groan!!

gbappa
@vyasagrad E-nuff with the stache jokes already :p

vyasagrad
@gbappa Eeeeeeeeee who?

gbappa
@vyasagrad Eeeeeeeeee

vyasagrad
@gbappa ooh I luv knock knock jokes...who's there?

gbappa
@vyasagrad Knock knock

vyasagrad
@gbappa Do U know any mustache jokes?

sarmishtasposse
@sexysarmishta Wait I got another 1...what is she (@devyaniscool) auditioning for? a porn movie...u know bcoz of the stache...haha LOLZ

sexysarmishta
@sarmishtasposse Haha G1 You'd think she would at least bleach the stache for the wedding day

sarmishtasposse
@sexysarmishta @devyaniscool LOLZ her dhoti will go well with her stache

sexysarmishta
@devyaniscool Heard you proposed to @yayatithehotty? Will you be wearing dhotis next?

vyasagrad
@gbappa Or so she thinks...muahahahaha

gbappa
@devyaniscool hooks up with @yayatithehotty ? Good for Devyani

yayatithehotty
so this is what it feels like to be married...

devyaniscool
Wedding day was almost perfect except for Dad’s goof up of getting @sexysarmishta to become my maid of honor. Maid dad, not maid of honor.

gbappa
@vyasagrad Stop padding up these stories like ur resume

vyasagrad
@gbappa R u crazy? 140 tweets or less…maybe

gbappa
@vyasagrad episode 11 in 140 characters or less?

crystalblur
Chapter 11: How Yayati got his mojo back

Must watch movies and more

2009-12-24T20:24:00.007-05:00

Updated on: 5Jan10

Ola readors and readoritas! Enjoying Christmas break by doing all kinds of fun things I suppose. If you have access to snow you must try making some Calvin snowmen. Buck and I made some and it was the most fun ever! We had a couple of evil snowmen attacking little snowmen with butter knives. Evil is so much fun :)

Anyhoo...I have decided to start an ongoing list of must watch, must avoid and everything in between movies. Will start with a list of recent (post 2007) releases ‘coz I recently got a Netflix account and have started catching up on movies released in the past couple of years. Here we go:

Awesome

1) 9 (The animation, the beasts, the creativity…what’s not to like…well okay the ending could’ve been better, but still the awesomeness cannot be denied.)

2) District 9 (I loved the aliens, the plot, the script…not one boring moment).

3) Doubt (The amazing Meryl Streep! Script and plot rocked my world...absolutely loved it).

Awesome but depressing

1) The boy in the striped pajamas (Nazi Germany as seen through two eight year old boys. You never see the brutality on the screen and somehow that makes it even more chilling. It is a brilliant movie).

Surprisingly entertaining

1) Bolt (From the previews I had low expectations but it what a cute movie it turned out to be).

2) Julie and Julia (Brisk, light and as usual Meryl Streep rocks!).

3) The devil wears Prada (Meryl Streep again! Plus you get to see fabulous clothes paraded around).

4) Tulpan (I know I shouldn't judge a country based on a farce such as Borat but I did. Am I glad I watched Tulpan. The balance has been restored. I will continue to judge).

Only if you are really bored

1) Hancock (It was a very bizarre plot but at least it never got boring or annoying).

2) Enchanted (Amy Adams is adorable. Fairy tale princess on the cynical streets of New York…it coaxes a smile out of you).

3) Ella enchanted (Cinder-ella with a twist…me likey).

4) Land of the lost (Matt Lauer bits were hilarious. Other than that it was a drag. So watch the first and last 5 min of the movie and the rest is avoidable).

Could not take more than 15 min of this crap

1) Confessions of a shopaholic (Seriously, get a script before making a movie).

2) Step brothers (I love Will Ferrell but this was just too crass).

3) Nobody knows (I’m referring to the Japanese one…apparently there is a Korean movie by the same name too. The movie is well-made, based on a true story yadayadayada but it was like watching a 2 h rape scene…seriously sadistic! Watch it only if you want to punish yourself).

4) The code (Yikes…didn’t watch beyond the first 10 min…may be it gets better, didn’t care to find out).

5) Marley & me (Depressing and annoying. It is not a badly made movie but being an avid watcher of 'the dog whisperer' I found the uncontrolled mayhem that the dog unleashes throughout the movie highly irritating. I have low tolerance for people who adopt pets and then don't do a good job of taking care of them).

6) The tale of Despereaux (Possible the most boring animated movie I have watched).

7) Mall cop (Crap).

Addictive TV shows that make you hate having a job:

1) Sopranos (This show made me crave Italian food like I've never before. Buy lots of pasta and Ragu with the DVDs)

2) 24-season 1 (Every episode ends in a cliffhanger. So the best way to keep a day job while doing a marathon with this show is to stop watching it in the middle of the episode. That way you can stop without going nuts).

3) Six feet under (I just loved this show!)

4) Dexter (Initially I didn't care for the show, the science is pretty crappy, plus the guy who plays the main character in Dexter is a homosexual in six feet under, so it took me a while to 'accept' Dexter but now I am hooked).

Of shrooms and koopalings

2009-11-20T16:13:00.005-05:00

Dear Princess Peach,

Hi! In case you are wondering where I am and what's taking so long I thought I should write. I am stuck in the freaking desert for the last 3 days. Yes Luigi is with me but that hasn't made things any easier. Sure we are getting better each day but looks like you will be with the koopalings for a good few months.

Rest assured, if we don't give up on rescuing you and make it to the end I want to say this...you better be prepared to give one hell of a blow job.

Best,
Mario

5 toes make a right...foot

2009-07-28T23:04:00.001-04:00

Ding! Tired feet ready themselves to exit the subway at Penn Station NY. “This is Canal street”, proclaims the train announcement. One man is appalled. The tired feet march on. One pair of feet recklessly run at 20mph in the quest to catch a connecting train. Mad rush. The running feet nearly run over a man. The man who was almost run over utters a single word, “Jeez!” The 20mph feet screech in their sneakers which in turn give out a high pitched squeal. Then without acknowledging the mini outburst, the feet carry on at 15 mph. Around the corner, a quarter succumbs to gravity. The sound of metal colliding with the floor reverberates only for a moment. The coin finds a resting place in the wet brown ick of the subway. Amazingly, the coin is not orphaned and makes its way back into the wallet. At least one person is appalled and feels heartfelt gratitude for the invention of credit cards. The feet carry on, turning another corner and stumbling upon the familiar face of ‘Sleepy Lester’ and his harmonica. This time the feet are tempted to slow down or even stop. But they don’t…they march on.

Crystal and the physics of kayaking

2009-06-17T15:26:00.004-04:00

I went kayaking last weekend! Never thought I would kayak because a) the kayaks look like flimsy, non-reliable contraptions of doom and b) I have very miserable hand strength. I struggle with sealed water bottle caps…yes it is that bad.

But then I met Buck’s friend Chip. Chip is in his 50s (or 60s?), very active, athletic and enthusiastic about kayaking. He convinced me to give it a try and I thought okay, it can’t be that bad. I have rowed a boat in Powai or somewhere in Mumbai and I can swim albeit frog style. So I should be able to handle it. Happily I agreed and made my way to a kayaking lesson.

Chip of course was very excited and when we got to his house, we were confronted with 3 kayaks locked and loaded on top of his Jetta. How do you fit 3 kayaks on a medium sized 4-door car you ask? Apparently you need some basic knowledge of trigonometry, a little bit of integration and derivatizing and then multiply the whole thing with Plank’s constant to get a unique number that does not appear in the Fibonacci sequence. So obviously it is yellow, green and white from left to right, left and right being relative terms which you can figure out using Einstein’s constant of relativity. It is good to know all the constants, it evens out all the equations and stabilizes them. Man, was I glad I took all those math and physics classes or we would have never headed out to the water. Then to remember the order in which the Kayaks go on the car Chip came up with an acronym. Of course later on we forgot the acronym, so then we had to come up with another acronym to remember the first one. It is all very hazy now.

Lesson 1: Getting into the kayak.

Yeah, it starts there. How do you get into a wobbly kayak that is more tipsy than Jack Sparrow at 10 in the morning? First you take a journey through time and go back to the buoyancy lessons you took in the physics class. Multiply the kayak with the buoyancy constant to make the kayak stable and then leap ‘crouching tiger hidden slip disk’ style and aim to land straight into the kayak cockpit. If you try this, let me know how it worked out for you. Then you find your center of gravity which is usually right under your butt. Now it is time to bid good bye to land sweet land and make way to the watery grave.

Lesson 2: Rowing

Apparently you do not need hand strength to row a kayak if you are doing it correctly. The stroke requires you to use the abdominal and back muscles. I know what you are thinking. An ab workout in the middle of a lake? Where do I sign up?

It is pretty much like learning to ride a bike. You balance the kayak with your knees, if the wave tips the kayak to the right you lift your right knee which is wedged against the kayak side to lift it up. The trick is to not over compensate, coz once you get into a pendulum swing the sin theta will increase and what that means in layman terms is that you are about to swim with the fishes.

So that also brings up the other problem of rowing. The oar is held the same way one would hold a balancing stick on the tight rope. Then without bending the elbows too much you begin to row. To row correctly you need to swing your torso side to side. The problem with that is …you have to move the upper torso. Once you find your center of gravity, you don’t want to mess with the posture too much. So that’s the challenge. Add to that, an uneven strength in the strokes depending on whether one is righty or lefty. I being righty, the kayak kept steering to the left. So navigating was an added challenge.

I kept venturing out in the center of the lake because I felt the water was steadier there as compared to the water’s edge which had more of the ripples and waves. However, I realized that it was a very bad idea for a n00b to do that. Thankfully, my beginners luck spared me the agony of toppling into the water. However, Buck wasn’t as lucky. His kayak took a bad turn with gargantuan sin theta values and Buck was water bound. The important thing is not to panic. Even when you can’t feel the ground beneath your feet, which Buck didn’t. So now there was the task to get Buck ashore and tow the kayak and oar to the shore. Buck pretty much had to swim to the shore because we weren’t familiar with techniques of getting back into the kayak in the middle of the lake. Plus the gravitational constant is too high for you to do crouching tiger. Add to that Newton’s second and third law of motion. Buck as a result was left with little or no thrust.

I will stick with the shore next time.

Surprisingly Buck didn’t get psyched out by the dupki he took in the water and went for another round of kayaking. I on the other hand called it a day.

Lesson 3 is in July.

Meanwhile I found these videos of kayaking on you tube. Simply amazing. Hope you guys will get excited about kayaking after reading this post and put all your physics and math skills to test.

Alice in wonderland

2009-06-11T19:36:00.008-04:00

I decided to take another plunge into the rabbit hole last week when I came across “The Annotated Alice”. This time around, I had a Gardner by my side, Martin was his name and he revealed that there were many a things left unexplored when I first visited wonderland. Cleverly hidden math riddles, wordplay and illustrations, I was dazzled by it all. Curiouser and curiouser as I got, alas a dreadful question I asked, which was quite so eloquently put by Smokie when they sang…

Twenty-four years just waiting for a chance,
To tell her how I'm feeling, maybe get a second glance,
Now I've got to get used to not living next door to Alice...
Alice, who the fuck is Alice?

Alice Liddell photographed by Lewis Carroll

So I had questions, more questions than Alice had for the dormouse, about Alice and the Dodo with the pen name called Carroll. I was curiouser, that he chose a little girl as the protagonist. Was he a feminist? A social activist perhaps? How did he concoct this fantastical fantasy land? Much to my chagrin, Wonderland started transforming into Michael Jackson’s Neverland and my now disturbed mind was filled with images of Carroll Carroll (as Vladimir Nabakov referred to Carroll, comparing him with Humbert Humbert from Lolita). In fact, in the introduction to the annotated Alice, which I had conveniently skipped and proceeded to jump deep into Wonderland enjoying tea parties and croquet, there was a disclosure of some circumstantial evidence that Carroll might have been…(gag)…a pedophile.

Lewis Carroll

Of course the moment I read that, I was filled with disgust and I felt a shudder as I wondered about Alice and other ‘child friends’ that Carroll made over the years. Who was Alice? Was she a fictitious character or one of Carroll’s child friends? Many believe that Carroll designed Alice after Alice Liddell, who was the daughter of Henry Liddell, a friend of Carroll. He described Alice Liddell as ‘a child of quite unearthly beauty.’

He wrote a letter to Alice Liddell after she got married stating, “I have had scores of child-friends since your time but they have been quite a different thing.” Gardner mentions that it is also known that Mrs. Liddell was suspicious of Carroll’s kinship with Alice and took measures to discourage their interaction. Mrs. Liddell all of the early letters to Alice. Carroll would often sign off his letters to his special friends as 10,000,000 kisses. However, in Gardner’s view Carroll’s intentions could not have been sexual.

Gardner also mentions that Carroll was adept at meeting little girls and would carry knick knacks to peak the girls’ interest. This would include safety pins to pin up the skirts of the little girls when they decided to wade in the water at the beach. He would sketch nude photos of his child friends with polite permission from the moms no less. Didn’t MJ have notes from mommas of his PJ buddies too?

Once Carroll offered a piece of blotting paper to a little girl who was drenched in sea water and said to her, “May I offer you this to blot yourself up?”

Whether Carroll was sexually interested in these little girl is something that is not clearly known. Some say in those days, taking nude photos of little girls did not have sexual connotations. Little girls would be admired for their purity and virgin beauty. Even so, I find that the way he sought out and consorted with little girls, was a bit odd.

Now I return to the mock turtle and the Duchess.

“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers…

The Tale of Mrs. Fuddle-Dud

2009-06-09T15:04:00.005-04:00

There was a 20-something chap called Vettickanakudy,
A dingy university apartment dweller and a bit moody.
He ate oodles of noodles,
Drew questionable doodles,
For a cruddy crap major chose he.

He drank gallons of tea,
Slurp slurp slurp went Vettickanakudy.
One day he sat feeling quite blue,
Under a lamp that cost just 2 smackaroos.
The tap leaked drippity drop,
The clock chimed tickety tock,
Just then Vettickanakudy thought,
He heard a hissy hiss no doubt.

Following the hissy hiss sound,
His eyes circled the room around.
And he spotted 6 legs in a hurry,
Crawling out of last night's putrid curry.
“Pudding and rotten curry, my what lovely treats,
I wish I had 6 hands instead of 6 feets."
Thus misspoke the owner of the hissy hiss,
Scurrying and scampering amid the messy mess.

“Why Mr. Creepy Roach,
That’s awful rude of you to encroach!”
Said Vettickanakudy now quite annoyed,
To find a Periplaneta Americana by his side.
Startled the roach lost its footing,
Down tumbled all the scrumptious pudding.
“Clearly you are the one to apologize,
Sorry Mrs. Fuddle-Dud would suffice.”

“Hey! You’ve been mooching off me since January end,
I saw you peeking and hiding under the cabinet bend.
If anything, you owe me apologies and monies,
For hogging my space and eating my macaronis.”
“It’s your own fault Mr. Vettickanakudy,
For leaving scrumptious snacks for a 6-legged foodie.
So now again I demand at once,
Say you are sorry for being a rude dunce.”

“Alright Mrs. Fuddle-Dud you make a good point,
I do have a habit of running a messy joint.
But before I go into a lengthy extenuation,
A teeny question precedes my self flagellation.”

Distracted by the big words Vettickanakudy used,
Mrs. Fuddle-Dud got a little confused.
“Can you tell me Mrs. Fuddle-Dud what’s the pixel size,
Of your peering dark globular black compound eyes?”
“Now that you ask, I must confess,
The compound eye resolution is a bit of a mess.”

“Well that explains why you did not see,
The red can of whoop ass lying just by me.”
Down came the mist, choking and all,
Vettickanakudy waited for the imminent fall.
Falling on her back with the slightest thud,
That was the end of Mrs. Fuddle-Dud.

Review: Pixar doesn't screw Up

2009-06-08T15:40:00.006-04:00

I watched “Up” this weekend. The reviews are already in and it is, as they say, the must see movie of the year so far. I agree. It is worth going to the theater and shelling out $11.75 to watch it in 2D. I am not much of a 3D fan though. Chota chetan was the only movie I’ve ever watched in 3D. Other than that all my 3D experiences have been in Universal Studios. I’d rather not watch an entire movie in 3D. I think it would give me a headache. Plus I was hoping that most of the little buggers will go for the 3D version and so I should be able to enjoy the movie in an unadulterated fashion, uninterrupted by the dark shadows of dutiful parents escorting their bundles of joys to poo poo potties. No such luck.

Expectations can make or break a movie for me. Particularly high expectations…they tend to ruin movies for me. With Pixar I have continually gone in with increasingly demanding expectations and incredibly Pixar has not failed to deliver (with the exception of Cars. I have forgiven and moved on since). Wall-E surpassed my expectations, not only because of its inherent awesomeness, but because the previews for the movie were the most perfect previews I could ever ask for. Intriguing enough to make you want to go check it out, yet not revealing of the characters, plot and particularly jokes. I had no clue about where the plot would go in Wall-E and every scene unfolded, unraveled and kept me mesmerized. That’s the thing with jokes, they can knock you over with the punch line and make you roll on the floor hysterically first time around but the second time it is worth no more than a chuckle and then it stops being funny. So that was one my complaints with Up, I felt like there was too much given away in the previews.

The flying house and the dirigible were reminiscent of Miyazaki’s movies. However, unlike Miyazaki movies, this one left me with a lot of sadness which would probably go unnoticed by most viewers in their 20s or younger. I watched most of the movie teary eyed, feeling horrible about Carl Fredrickson’s life and feeling mushy about his memories and life with Ellie and what they had together and what they didn’t have together. It was one emotional roller coaster for me, tugging at my heart strings with that haunting thematic music score by Michael Giacchino. This was one Pixar movie where I cried more than I laughed.

There were some jokes in the movie which were what I’d consider cheap laughs. Alpha’s voice was not a source of entertainment for me, although I can understand that it is hard to appeal to such a wide range of audiences. It might have tickled the little buggers, who were actually quite amusing at times when they laughed hysterically at some silly antic like Russell climbing onto Carl’s face.

So although Pixar did not meet my expectations for this movie to be a 90 minutes long laugh riot, it was well worth making a trip to the theater. Another triumph for Pixar. “Adventure is out there!” Go watch it.

Jane Wendell - 2

2009-06-05T18:11:00.000-04:00

Air France Flight 447 went missing in the Atlantic Ocean with 228 passengers and crew on board. Jane wondered what the passengers or the crew went through when that happened. Did they get to say their goodbyes to the loved ones at the airport before the plane took off? May be some of them were so lucky that they got to say a teary eyed goodbye in a warm embrace. May be some of them were flying home after a long lonely wait. There was a report of a young man on the flight who was heading back to France after attending his father’s funeral. Poor bastard…the irony…he spent his final days moping around for a loss that he didn’t have to bear for more than a few days. Or may be he hated his father and was glad that the old geezer finally kicked the bucket. How inappropriate of him, Jane thought. But Jane didn’t have all the facts to decide who was being inappropriate to whom.

Jane thought that a plane crash was one of the most horrific ways to die. But again, may be Jane didn’t have all the facts. There were reports of the plane losing cabin pressure and there were reports of no communication from the pilots. All the information was reported by the plane systems, or so the media led Jane to believe. Even the airplane systems didn’t seem to have the facts straight. There were contrary reports of the airspeed right before the crash. It was entirely plausible that the plane systems failed and that this in turn resulted in a sudden pressure drop. In such an event the definition of an ideal situation changes dramatically. Ideally, the oxygen masks should drop. The passengers and crew then have, depending on how fast the cabin pressure is plummeting, sometimes less than 15 seconds to put on the mask. Jane would never pay attention to the emergency instructions. Jane would think, much as most of the passengers on Air France Flight 447 probably thought, “What are the odds?”

And even if Jane would’ve paid attention, she could’ve never managed to put on the mask in less than 15 seconds. And would the odds be any better if panic and turbulence were added to the equation? Jane wouldn’t know. She was never any good with probability problems. But none of that would’ve mattered anyway.

If the cabin pressure had dropped suddenly, the passengers and crew would pass out. There would be no communication from the pilots. The media reports that there were no distress calls issued by the pilots. Jane could console herself by thinking that at least they didn’t suffer just like the Columbia crew on Feb 1, 2003.

Jane had once read somewhere that NASA gives the crew cyanide pills so that in the event of an imminent disaster the crew can choose to die a less painful death. She does not want to acknowledge that sometimes events can transpire rapidly and be completely out of ones control. That there are times when you run out of possibilities and choices to consider. In case of shuttle disasters, Jane clearly does not appreciate the gravity of the situation. Jane still believes that NASA provides instant death pills to every crew member.

Jane’s life is full of choices. Some of these choices are not even possibilities. But Jane doesn’t know that. Jane works very hard to keep it that way.

On a side note, although most if not all the passengers and the crew on Air France were born on different days and had different sun signs and the exact same planetary alignment as their counterparts on earth, only the ones on the plane met with the same fate.

Jane Wendell

2009-06-05T16:47:00.001-04:00

Jane sat on the couch glancing out of the living room window. She felt much like the gloomy skies, dull and jaded. As always, things could be better and things could be worse.

The top story on the news today was about HIV positive men raping girls in Zimbabwe because they believed that having intercourse with a virgin would cure their disease. The youngest victim was reported to be a one month old baby. Was there anything at all that could’ve prevented this rape? Education, religion, faith? This man thought that it was okay to rape a one month old baby. What can anyone possibly say to this man to convince him that it is not okay to rape a baby? That it is not okay to rape anyone? Jane couldn’t think of one thing to say.

What is the solution then? Lock him up? For how long? What happens once he is released? Will he learn morality in prison? However, it is said that people can be reformed. Many find Jesus in prison. Nobody knows what crime Jesus committed.

There must be some law in Texas that would say “FRY ‘EM”. Many think it is not humane. That every motherfucker deserves a second chance. The tiger who mauled a zookeeper to death on May 27 in New Zealand was immediately shot to death. There was no room for debate. He turned on a human. The tiger deserved to die. He could not be reformed. It was the most humane thing to do.

Chapter 11: RT How Yayati got his mojo back

2009-06-03T23:38:00.004-04:00

I am now on twitter and following some interesting characters. Drop by to see what they are tweeting about.

http://twitter.com/crystalblur

Espelling kaantest

2009-05-27T17:13:00.001-04:00

I don’t know if any of you caught the preliminary round of Scripps spelling bee 2009 today but it was totally bizarre.

Here are some excerpts from the proceedings:

Moderator: Tea-is-spoon
Nerd 1: Teaspoon?
Moderator: Tea-is-spoon
Nerd 1: Can I have the definition please?
Moderator: You need the definison to ispell tea-is-spoon? You are kidding me.
Nerd 1: Tea-is-spoon…T-E-A-I
Buzzer
Moderator: I in tea-is-spoon…kaha kaha se chale aate hai. Nekayst.
Nerd 2 awaits the word.
Moderator: Meliority
Nerd 2: Are there any alternate pronunciations?
Moderator: Yes, the Chinese pronunciation is meriolity.
Nerd 2: Okay umm, M-E-R…no wait L
Buzzer
Moderator: Nekayst. Your word is Jaa-lay-pee-no
Nerd 3: Do you mean Ha-le-pi-no?
Moderator: No, there is a J in the beginning. Oh I see what you did there…very smarut.
Nerd 3: J-A-L-A-P-E-N-O
Moderator: Okay, okay, nekayst. Your word is Tuh-choch-kee
Nerd 4: May I have the language of origin.
Moderator: All the words are in English. Kya kya sawaal puchte hai.
Nerd 4: Can you use it in a sentence please?
Moderator: Yes, you need to espell tuh-choch-kee correctly in order to compete in the nekayst round.
Nerd 4: Tchotchke…T-C-H-O-T-C-H-K-E
Moderator: Bhai wah! Nekayst. Your word is cunnilingus.
Nerd 5: May I have the definition please.
Moderator: Hey bhagvan! You will have to ask your mummy and daddy what it means.
Nerd 5: Can I ask them now?
Moderator: You have 30 seconds to spell.
Nerd 5: Uh, this was not in the study list.
Buzzer
Moderator: Nekayst.

http://www.spellingbee.com/
Don't miss the finals on 28 May 2009 on ABC at 8P/7C

Chapter 10: Divine secrets of the Yayati sisterhood

2009-05-20T18:44:00.004-04:00

Vyasa (V): Here we are
Ganpati (G): Indeed, here we are!
V: But the question is where were we?
G blows…eh about…almost…2 years worth of dust from the last papyrus he had scribbled.
V almost falls out of his seat.
V: 2 years! Well then it is about time.

V and G get off the seats and break into a song.
Ta-tut ta-tut tut-ta!
It was 4 years ago
Was it really?
That we gave this story a go

V: I think I snapped a tendon, we should stick to writing
G (disappointed): Oh alright.
V: Where were we story-wise?
G: Let’s see…we were writing about some dude called Shankaracharya…no wait…Sukracharya. He is an evil scientist who is funded by Asuras and can bring people back from dead.
V: Wait a minute. I do not cater to evil scientists stereotypes. Sukracharya is a good guy.
G: Then why is he consorting with the Asuras?
V: Do you know how hard it is to get funding? On average 97% of the grants are rejected.
G: Alright simmer down. So there is Dr. S and he is a single father. What’s the story with the mom?
V: I haven’t made up that part yet…no questions, just a brief summary please.
G: Okay…the daughter Devyani has an affair with a student named Kacha, not knowing that Kacha is actually a spy. You know you could call this chapter ‘the spy who shagged me!’.
V stares sternly as G chuckles.
V: Take your time, we have all day.
G: Fine! The spy plots and successfully steals Dr. S’s Sanjiviniology research and then ditches Devyani. Bru-tal! Then Devyani steals the princess’s clothes and the princess in turn pushes Devyani in a dry well. Tough day for Devyani. Then a prince conveniently and believably happens to be wandering around in the forest.
V -> searing stares.
G: And the prince is gallivanting in the woods all by himself, probably looking for damsels in distress, I mean who knows what he was looking for and it doesn’t matter so long as the plot moves forward.
V taps his foot.
G: Then the prince…what is his name anyway?
V: Umm…Yayati
G: Okay, Yayati then finds Devyani and rescues her and then Devyani proposes and gets rejected by the prince because of her fat ass and Devyani is stranded in the forest.

V (rubbing his hands with excitement): Alright, here we go.

Devyani sat in the forest feeling dejected and alone. Soon the forest was enveloped in darkness and sinister howls echoed in the forest. Devyani cowered under a tree and started praying for somebody to rescue her.

Sukracharya squints at his wrist dial under the candle light.
Sukracharya (S): Where is this girl? I can’t figure out what time it is on this dial.

Vyasa (V): Talking about wrist dials, I’m thinking of buying one with an abacus in it.
Ganapati (G): You people with your gadgets. When you are hungry it is time to eat, when you are sleepy it is time to sleep. I don’t need a dial to tell me what time it is.
V: Ganya, you are strange sometimes.

Worried about the daughter, he asks a student to go looking for her in the forest. Partly because as a tenured professor he could get away with it but mostly because he was afraid of the dark. The student searches for Devyani for hours and finally finds her and takes her home.
Student: “Can I graduate now?”
S: “That is up to the committee to decide. Remember there is no substitute for hard work.”
Disgruntled student walks away.

S: And as for you missy, do you know what time it is?
Taps the wrist dial.
S: I am sick of this behavior. Out partying at ungodly hours, the pigeon practically fainted last week from delivering your incessant pigeon mail and then there is all this expensive junk you keep buying…like this wrist dial which doesn’t even work.
Devyani (D): It works only during the day dad!

G: I always wonder why those things can’t work at night? I mean clearly we have the moon at night, so what’s the problem?
V: I don’t know. So where were we…

D: It works only during the day dad! Stop yelling at me. I wasn’t out partying, I was almost murdered.
S: Murdered? Don’t be dramatic. Why would anyone murder my daughter when I can bring you right back to life? That would be the most pointless thing to do.
D bursts into tears.
D: Nobody likes me. Everybody makes fun of me. I am never getting married.
S: Okay okay. Tell me what happened.
D: It’s Sarmishta…she thinks she is so hip. The only reason she has friends is because her dad would behead anyone who is mean to her. Anyway, I was minding my own business and I don’t know what got into her. She is probably jealous of me or something she just pushed me into a pit.
S: May be it was a mistake. May be she didn’t mean to push you.
D: She also said that your last publication had the lousiest data she has ever seen and something about error bars…that you haven’t heard about them…
Sukracharya’s face turned the deepest color of crimson.

S: I will have a chat with her Dad first thing in the morning.
He simmered through the night and made his way to the palace at the crack of dawn.

At the palace.
King Vrishaparva (KV): Sukracharya? What a pleasant surprise! Usually I don’t wake up before you can start telling time but the wife is on my case. So I do a little cardio in the morning to get the old motor running. In fact I am looking for a running partner, you interested?
S gives angry stares.
KV: Sooooo, what’s up? What brings you here?
S: I will get right to the point. I am not treated with respect and I am tired of this attitude. There are lots of other kingdoms that I can offer my services to and would be appreciated for. In fact, I am thinking of leaving you and your kingdom for good.
KV: What did the Asuras do now?
S: It wasn’t the Asuras this time. It was your daughter.
KV: My daughter? What could she possibly do or say that would make you leave?
S: I am not going to repeat the hideousness that she uttered but I want to make it clear that I will not stand for it.
KV: Okay, I will talk with her.
S: I am afraid that is not enough.
KV: Look, I would hate for things to end this way. You and I both know that my kingdom will crumble without your Frankenstein stuff. I apologize on her behalf.
S: I have put up with a lot humiliation with the Asuras harassing my students and murdering them and feeding their body parts to my pets. But this time it has gone too far. There is nothing you can say or do to stop me.
KV: I will double your salary and fund you for a year.
S: I said that I will not…really? Double!
KV: Yes.
S: I do need some more grant money and my last application was rejected. Alright you have a deal.
KV: Great chatting with you. Gotta run.

Sukracharya gleefully returns home only to find a miffed Devyani.

D: So?
S: It has all been taken care of.
D: What do you mean? Do I get an apology from Sarmistha?
S: Er…yes. She is going to mail it to you.
D (whines): Daaaad! I was humiliated. You didn’t just let them get away with it?
S: Of course not, they are going to pay for it.
D: Pay, you got a settlement? How much? Can I shop at Gocci now?
S: Sorry hon, you already spent your allowance and I need the extra money for my research.
D: This is not fair. I demand an apology from Sarmistha…no wait, I want her to be my maid for…forever.
S: Devyani, she is the King’s daughter.
Devyani makes puppy face.
S: Dammit Devyani! Okay fine, but if they don’t agree you will have to quit moping around and no more trips to the forest after dark.

G: Are all the women in your story unreasonable, emotional drags that serve the only utilitarian purpose of propagating the progeny?
V: Well they are women. What are you getting at?
G sighs.
V: I am getting hungry. Should we go grab a bite?
G: Might as well finish this chapter.
V: Oh that would take far too long. Sarmista becomes Devyani’s maid, I still haven’t figured out a way to make that sound plausible. Then Devyani finally hooks up with Yayati, the guy who rescued her from the well in the forest which by the way is an inter-caste marriage. Pretty forward of me know? Hooking up a Kshatriya with a Brahmin girl.
G: Scandalous.
V: And then of course, Sarmista also gets jiggy with Yayati…the whole catfight angle to the story.
G: Yeah let’s go grab a bite. I have a coupon for Kabooters
V: You go there?
G: Yeah, I go there for the food. They have really good wings.
V: Riiigght!

Suralichya vadyafucking waste of time

2009-05-19T13:36:00.004-04:00

There are hundreds of food blogs online, touting saliva inducing photos of their great successes in the kitchen. That my friends is the Disney version of what could happen in your kitchen. Sure it could happen to you, a perfectly baked something or the other, but that is one side of the story. What about the other side? The dark side where rotis are amoeboid and flames erupt to singe your eyebrows and concoctions turn into inedible goo. Where are those stories? Yes, I am talking about all those FUBAR experiments in the kitchen. Surely these stories need a voice. Not because we can learn from those mistakes but because these stories could be infinitely more entertaining to read. Since I have found immense pleasure in others’ misery I thought I should give some back to the community. So here it is…my first attempt at making suralichya vadya.

Once upon a time I was browsing some food blogs. I came across some extremely delicious looking suralichya vadya photos. Hubba hubba hubba. So I took a look at the recipe and it looked fairly straight forward. Make batter, cook over low flame until thickens, plate out, cool and roll. The batter cooking did not have any specific instructions. The most they would say was, cook until it is cooked. This is going to be a good lesson on why recipes with specific instructions are a great idea, you can tell.

Anyway, I looked at the recipe and convinced myself that I could handle it…easy peazy. So here I was, 10 minutes into cooking the batter on low flame with constant stirring. That is co-incidentally the amount of time it takes for me to lose patience. The flame went up 2 notches. Bad idea. Very quickly, the batter started turning into a viscous and lumpy blob. Seeing this I panicked and hastily plated out the batter before it could turn into one giant lump. Of course the batter was not yet completely cooked. I valiantly microwaved the plated batter in an attempt to cook the plated stuff but the batter could care less. So this is what I ended up with…perforated raw suralichya vadya and lumps of half cooked batter.

At this point I was left with a crap load of dirty dishes, a tummy roaring with hunger and one twitching eye. Most people would quit at this point, order a pizza and call it a day. Not me. No no no no no. I was sure not going to dump this disaster. So I steamed my perforated suralichya namesake vadya for 10 mins like idlis and then doused them in a seasoning of oil, mustard seeds and hing and ate them. And then I farted happily every after.

Moral of the story:
1) An empty stomach and a lumpy batter do not make for a great day.
2) Suralichya vadya = crap load of dirty dishes. Think about it.
3) It is immoral to make suralichya vadya

Sita sings the blues

2009-05-04T16:05:00.003-04:00

This may be old news for most of you folks but this stuff is worth pimping. So I will go ahead anyway. Unlike me and my MB retake, Nina Paley single handedly stuck with her vision of Ramanyan and brought it to fruition as “Sita sings the blues”. She has made her movie available for viewing in its entirety for free. You can read more about Nina Paley or watch Sita sings the blues go to http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

Annette Hanshaw’s songs are simply brilliant and a perfect fit for the movie. Although when I think about the amount of moolah Paley had to part with to deal with the copyright restrictions for those songs, I'm only guessing here, but I have a feeling that it must have surely broken Paley’s metaphorical balls.

The whole movie was a visual delight. Loved it. My favorite part was the conversational narration of Ramayan…that shit was hilarious.

That’s all.

Fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:re Infinite loop

2009-01-31T19:36:00.004-05:00

Crys is wondering how long it would take to max out two gmail accounts if they were set such that all the messages received in account A are forwarded to account B and all the messages received in account B are forwarded to account A.

The underlying assumption is that this would create a loop of forwards. If it doesn't, why not?

If it does, only data from actual tests with gmail accounts are acceptable responses.

Finally!

2009-01-24T17:46:00.005-05:00

Are you suffering from red eyes, incessant yawns and getting barely enough sleep? Are you too poor to afford DVR and wish you hadn’t squandered away all your money on food and rent? If you have answered yes to both questions then you must be a harrowed tennis fan trying to find a reasonable hour to watch the Australian Open. Fellow sufferers, I feel your pain.

Even worse, sometimes you find the time to watch AO and what happens? They feature two Russian chicks on court 3 when you’d rather watch the oh-so-awesome Tsonga on court 10. Or feature some boring American player that you couldn’t care less about when drool worthy Safin is playing on the adjacent court. ESPN may not always get my priorities right but they totally redeemed themselves by starting ESPN 360.

If you haven’t already discovered ESPN 360, boy, are you in for a sweet surprise! So check it out…you can watch the entire uncut coverage (commentary, press interviews included) online for free. I haven't explored their archives yet but looks like they have most of the matches there. What's more, you can fast forward the ads. Yes...FF the ads! Can it get any better? Yes...you can watch your match of choice in the live coverage. I can finally choose to watch a live Safin/Tsonga/Monfils match on the internet over the featured non-Safin match on TV. Sweet!

I mean this was inevitable, it was going to happen eventually. This is the future of TV…everything should be the way it is on ESPN 360. Every week, all the new episodes of TV shows should become available and you should be able to pick and choose what and more importantly, when you watch a show. All the shows should be on demand. Why are we still forced to watch crap when we can have the option of choosing which crap we want to watch and when? Network folks, please take notes from ESPN 360…I cannot believe how long it is taking you guys to catch on.

ESPN 360…thanks!

Testing...1,2,19...check

2009-01-14T20:18:00.005-05:00

Hello...hello...hello

Echo...echo...echo

53 sentenced to death?

2007-08-24T13:38:00.000-04:00

Fucked up!

Corporation

2007-08-21T16:26:00.001-04:00

I saw the documentary ‘Corporation’ over the weekend and I thought that the documentary raises some serious concerns. At the outset I want to say that this article is not so much of a review of the documentary as it is a discussion of some of the topics covered in the documentary. I would also appreciate your input on the issues.

When I popped in the Corporation DVD, I anticipated a documentary on the perils of a capitalistic society (which it was). Even though the documentary has an air of anti-capitalistic agenda I found that the concerns in the documentary are very real and should be given a lot more attention than currently given by the mainstream media. The documentary shows how every individual (be it as a customer, employee or investor) is a part of the problem and could be a part of the solution.

As a consumer I thought I was pretty savvy until I watched the documentary. I discovered that a lot of information is withheld from the customers. I was especially alarmed about the rbST (artificially introduced growth hormone) in the milk issue. I will be discussing the rbST issue in depth in the next post.

[Do check your milk cartons for rbST content. If there is no mention of rbST on the carton then there is a strong possibility that the milk you are drinking contains rbST. Milk that does not contain rbST explicitly says so. However the presence of rbST is NOT mentioned on cartons of milk that contain rbST. The potential risks of consuming milks from cows that are treated with growth hormones are not clearly understood. So if you don’t want to consume milk with rbST, start buying all natural or organic milk.]

Although the discussion in this article relates to America, I don’t think it is an exaggeration to state that these issues are relevant to every country. After watching the documentary I realized that I had grossly underestimated the extent of exploitation by large corporations.

Profits over people - Exploitation of employees
We know that giant corporations exist and that they are willing to cut corners to maximize their profits. Wal-mart is an exemplary example of that. I know many people who boycott shopping at Wal-mart altogether. But even if you don’t shop at Wal-mart, no matter which giant retailer you choose, you are still supporting some sleazy corporation which is violating human rights. Everybody has heard about Nike outsourcing jobs to sweatshops in countries like China to get cheap labor. What I didn’t know was that all the other major shoe retailers like Reebok and Adidas also do the same. So unless you exclusively buy shoes from (expensive) stores like Beyond Skin or limit your purchase to the few domestically made lines of shoes from companies such as Converse, you are supporting the overseas exploitation in sweat shops. Same goes for clothes. If you have a pair of jeans from Levis or a shirt from GAP in your closet, you have bought a garment made in some sweatshop overseas. In fact there is a strong possibility that all your clothes were made in some sweatshop, unless the garment has a union label or you only buy clothes from fair trade organizations or employee owned businesses.

The pro-sweat shop argument
The companies that employ cheap labor claim that the people who work in the sweatshops would’ve been unemployed and even starved to death without their business. So in essence, the businesses are doing the sweatshop workers a big favor. In reality the wages are starkly low. The businesses can afford to pay higher wages. The profit margins are absurdly high. The laborers work inhuman amount of hours to make enough money so that they can sustain themselves. Of course if the workers demand better wages, the businesses wouldn’t think twice about taking their business elsewhere.

Exploitation of consumers
The exploitation does not stop at getting cheap labor. The corporations don’t care about the well being of the customers either. Important product information (such as the presence of rbST in milk) is withheld from the customers in the interest of product sales. Here is a clip of Erin Burnett from MSNBC who justifies the sale of low quality (to the point of being hazardous) products. She thinks it is okay to sell children’s toys with lead paint or toxic food-products because it keeps prices low.
Environmental hazards
Our increasing dependence on modern commodities has fueled a lifestyle that results in detrimental pollution of our environment. It is the price we pay for progress. I regard people who enjoy the comforts and advancements of a capitalist society as hypocrites when they talk about the evils of capitalism without altering their lifestyles. It is silly to try and impede progress. Capitalism is not a bad idea, it needs some tweaking not abandoning. The better strategy is to find solutions to reduce/regulate the toxic waste generation. There are several green earth organizations working towards these goals. Hence my belief was that the best solution was to create awareness about nature conservation and designing protocols for environmentally friendly practices would slowly steer us towards an eco-friendly environment.

Turns out the availability of green alternatives or lack of awareness is not even a main issue with corporations. It is all about money. Big corporations are so ruthless about making profits that they make a risk-benefit assessment for getting caught dumping poisons in the environment in terms of the fines they have to pay. They’d rather take the risk of getting caught and paying fines instead of investing in better practices for sewage disposal. So to control illegal dumping of toxic wastes, we have to find better solutions. Since, the only thing that these corporations care about is money; in my opinion the monetary fines should be raised to a point that the corporations seriously rethink their strategy of dealing with wastes.

What can we do?
As customers we can make many choices to work against bad practices that harm people and environment. It is not going to be easy to make the necessary changes because (a) it requires extra effort and (b) the alternative lifestyle can be expensive. But realizing that the alternative lifestyle is not so much of a choice as it is a necessity should help foster the necessary changes.

The first step to make these changes is to learn and research these issues. I did my own research and discovered some websites that offer information and solutions on some of the issues I discussed.
1) Fair Trade Federation This organization stipulates better environment and income for workers and artisans to bypass the exploitative work conditions in sweatshops. The website also states that the FTF marked products don’t cost more than the amount you pay the major retailers. How? The organization works directly with the producers to cut out the middlemen.
2) Sweat shop watch
3) Earth 911

If you have additional tips or quips about the issues at hand I would love to hear about them.

The future's not ours to see, que Sera Sera

2007-08-15T14:00:00.001-04:00

As a student in India, I found that critical thinking was largely lacking in science classrooms. Even the examinations seemed to test ones ability to memorize rather than indulgence in critical thinking which is at the very core of scientific thinking. It is no mystery to me then, that the two scientists I worked for in India were highly superstitious. One of them would put a red tilak on the paper mail that contained the manuscript about to be delivered for review before publication in a science journal. The other scientist I worked for was well traveled and even did a stint in research labs in the UK. But all the training in scientific thought did not shake her beliefs in her spiritually advanced Guru who could appear in two places at one time.

If this is the state of the scientific thinkers in India then what can one expect from the scientifically ignorant masses? It is no wonder that astrology is so popular in India. The idea that one can predict someone’s future based on the position of the planets in the solar system does not sound ludicrous to a (ridiculously) large number of people. It can be hard to regard astrology as hogwash when you grow up in a society where it is not uncommon to make major life decisions based on astrological charts. Marriages are fixed depending on the position of Saturn. Cars are purchased on the most auspicious days as determined by planetary alignment. A streak of bad luck can be fixed by wearing prescription precious stone (rings) in an effort to woo the planets in your favor or to ward off the cosmic bad vibes.

As with most superstitious beliefs, the faith in astrology is set through personal anecdotes. Once the superstitious beliefs are set in through confirmation bias it is hard to convince the person otherwise. No amount of experimental or statistical evidence that debunks astrology will challenge a believer’s set notion. A handy personal anecdote will void the need for questions or doubt. Questions such as, “how does astrology work?” become irrelevant. It has already been strongly instilled in the minds of the believers that it does not pay to have doubts. Blind faith is regarded as a virtue. The flaw lies in asking questions. So a person who sets his/her beliefs through rational thinking is thought to be close minded (the irony!) to things which have proved their efficacy through personal anecdotes rather than evidence based methodology.

Dawkins butts heads with astrology in his TV series called “the enemies of reason”. He chats with an astrologer who makes a living by publishing horoscopes in a newspaper. Dawkins suggests a simple experiment to test the veracity of astrological predictions. The experiment would be to cut out any one horoscope from a week old newspaper. Tell each individual (irrespective of their sun-sign) that the predictions apply to their sun-sign and then ask them how accurately it predicts what happened to them in the last week. Then calculate the accuracy of the prediction. The astrologer flat out refused to participate in the experiment.

Here is a short video clip of “The enemies of reason”. You can also watch the entire episode here.

Stardust: Movie review

2007-08-13T16:17:00.001-04:00

Stardust is another patriarchal fairytale that has not strayed from the standard recipe of a Hollywood magic fantasy drama. Although the movie is based on a book, the plot is rather sloppy. I am afraid J.K.R.’s stories have made movie goers like me expect a little more from the world of magic in general. So even though the special effects were great and the movie had some fun laughs I found the movie underwhelming. There is no complexity to the characters or the plot. Things happen just so that the plot moves along and most of the times it doesn’t make any sense, even in the magical kingdom where the writer is only limited by his imagination. The only saving grace for the movie is the humor which is very reminiscent of the Pirates movies.

The main plot is about lovers and finding love (ugh!). So you should be prepared for a fair amount of lovey dovey stuff piled onto more mush. When I say that the mush quotient is pretty high, I kid you not. There are lines like, “For you my love I would do anything. I would go to the end of the earth and pluck out some stars for you.”

The plot (that never thickens):
Once upon a time there lived a horny young man who wasn’t getting any action in the human world and so decided to try his luck in the magical kingdom which happened to be in the forbidden area across a wall. The man manages to sneak into the magical kingdom and starts checking out the streets of the magic kingdom for prospective mates. As luck would have it, he meets a super horny princess who is chained to a trailer which is in the middle of the busy market. What is a horny princess doing in the middle of a market soliciting strange men? A witch has enslaved the princess with her magic powers and so the princess is bound to the witch's trailer. (Cue: gasp!). But that still does not explain the horniness. Is she under a horny spell? Nope. Hey, women have needs too you know.

Anyhow, since the princess is bound to the trailer, the first order of business would be to rescue her. Nyoooo! There is no time. Well a quick quickie if you insist. Into the trailer they go and nobody comes a knocking when the trailer is rocking. It is wham bam thank you ma'm. The man returns to the human world and forgets about the whole thing. Alas, nine months later he finds a baby at the doorstep. The new daddy takes the news of his fatherhood pretty well by the commitment-phobic-movie-dad standards. He does not even get a paternity test. But that is not as strange as the fact that he does not ever try to get in touch with the woman who bore his son. Maybe they didn't have much in common, other than the son. At this point it is best you lay your questioning mind to rest if you want to enjoy the movie.

The rest that follows is the same old rehash of fairytales. There are two types of women, the smart hence ugly witches. Okay, Michelle Pfeiffer plays a witch, so they aren't all ugly. But all the independent women are evil witches. The other women fall in the category of damsels in distress. The men are busy killing each other when they are not romancing the women...except Robert De Niro who is a closet cross-dresser. Then there is the matter of saving the life of a fallen star (who morphs into Claire Danes on earth) before the witches or power hungry men get to her.

In the end, good conquers evil and the good guys live happily ever after...oops gave away the ending. But you knew that since the story began with once upon a time.

Rating: Blah with some giggles

3,2,1...lift off Endeavour

2007-08-09T23:04:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the day that space shuttle Endeavour launched. I had the noble intentions of witnessing it in person as Cape Canaveral isn’t too long a drive from where I live. But all such plans had to be sacrificed due to cruel work deadlines for Buck. So I camped out in front of the PC and turned on the live coverage feed on NASA’s website. It was pretty cool to watch the astronauts get suited up in the prep room, all with a wide grins on their faces. If it were me, I would’ve been shitting bricks at that point. I guess the grueling training and their (crazy) dream of floating in space keeps them strong. I take my position in the cheering section and gape at the countdown clock.

As I made myself comfortable in the office chair I wondered why I wasn’t on the couch instead. No this is not about the logistics of moving my couch. I am asking why doesn’t a single mainstream/popular channel give a live feed of the shuttle launch. Look at the popularity ratings of all the crappy reality shows. I am sure that a TV show on astronauts would do well. Not that it would be a crappy show but I think it would still be appealing for the masses.

Am I the only one who thinks that this is one of the most exciting events? Dare I say it is even more exciting than the World Cup or Superbowl. Sure, there are folks who follow shuttle launches closely but it is nothing compared to the hysteria a game or ever Harry Potter’s fate has managed to generate. Maybe my nerdiness prevents me from understanding the lack of enthusiasm for such events. So I am going to build a case for shuttle launch friendly channel(s). I predict that a reality show on astronauts will have a good demographic provided TV channels join in to create hype.

I mean we follow the dreams and aspirations of models (America’s next top hoochy mama) and Southwest air-hostesses (Airline). So why not astronauts and space shuttle launches?

What are the things that have a good following?
1) People who do crazy things (usually for money)
2) Sports
3) Magic, paranormals, psychics
4) Science fiction based shows
5) Celebrity related shows

(1) It is no secret that reality TV shows cast people who are crazy (for the drama and cat fights). If they are looking for kooky characters, I am sure there are plenty of those at NASA (remember the diaper wearing astronaut lady who, not surprisingly, got a lot of media coverage). Let’s face it, to be an astronaut you have to be a little crazy. Who in their right minds would volunteer to sit in a vehicle that is attached to a massive fuel tank that burns a million liters of fuel in less than ten minute? (Fear factor…phooey!)

(2) The shuttle travels at 17,180 mph for some part of its journey. Talk about zero to 60 in a fraction of a millisecond. NASCAR fans…hello?

(3) If David Blaine can dazzle the audiences using cheap tricks, space technology should be able to woo the audiences. Like Arthur C. Clark said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

(4) I can’t imagine this being a hard sell to audiences that love watching science fiction shows.

(5) This would be a great publicity stunt. Put one of the celebrities on a shuttle launch. There are quite a few adrenaline junkies in show biz and they can certainly afford to pay for the ride.

Wouldn’t the HP fans (who waited patiently for three years to figure out the fate of little Harry Potter) want to know what is to be of these valiant muggles who are about to float in space? Look no magic!

It isn’t a stretch to imagine a star wars and star trek fan camping out in front of Cape Canaveral for all of last week. I haven’t watched star wars and so I am not sure if it is accurate to deem the fans as folks who would appreciate space related technology.

From the popularity of action movies I would guess that there are a lot of folks who enjoy watching stuff blown up. When was the last time you watched a million liters of fuel burned up in 8.5 minutes?

The movie channels could pitch in with a day of space movies like Apollo 13. News channels that seem to have a dearth of news stories and spend air time covering local hot dog competitions and stories of women who want to go to jail to quit their compulsive smoking habits (Bah!) should be happy to do an in depth coverage on the shuttle launch. It is not a hot political issue that their sponsors might have objections to.

At least for one day we could ‘space out’ from the regular mind numbing programming. Interview the astronauts, do a short film on what kind of training these astronauts go through, what would they achieve from this mission, what kind of food they eat on the shuttle, how they shower (or not), what kind of difficulties and odds they have to surpass for a successful mission. It is a physically and mentally challenging ordeal and a once in a lifetime experience. Aren’t more people interested?

Wait…don’t answer that.

Go Dawkins!

2007-08-08T11:06:00.001-04:00

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and one of the most prominent pro-science voices. He has authored several eloquently written books like “The selfish gene” and “The blind watchmaker”. I only wish more people would read Dawkins and Sagan instead of Crichton and Cook.

In his latest venture, Dawkins is making a series called ‘The enemies of Reason’ which is to be aired on TV on 13 August, 2007. In this series, Dawkins takes on practices such as astrology, tarot, psychic readings and the topic we recently discussed, homeopathy. I quote from the Sunday Times review on Dawkins’ series:

As Dawkins says: “There might be bad scientists, but that does not mean the methodology of science is bad.” For him the acid test is forever and always: “Test it!” This is a principle totally lacking, he charges, at the Royal London Homeopathic hospital, recently refurbished to the tune of £20m, including £10m from the cash-strapped NHS, and with a plaque certifying the endorsement of the Prince of Wales. (His title for episode two of The Enemies of Reason is The Irrational Health Service.)

Meanwhile it is no secret that there is a severe funding crisis in biomedical science research. Currently in the US, eight out of ten quality research grant application are going unfunded.

What is undisputed is that homeopathy derived from an early misunderstanding of the principle behind vaccination: that like cures like. But actually a real vaccine stimulates the body’s own immune system to fight the disease. What makes homeopathy so truly absurd in Dawkins’s inexorable logic is the idea that a substance becomes more powerful the more it is diluted. The idea, widely believed though totally unproven, is that water retains a “memory” of the molecule, though if it did he points out – as the people of Gloucester might nowadays bear in mind – it would also “remember” the salt, mud and urine it once contained. He cites the statistical probability that “one molecule in every litre of water drunk once passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell”. Hardly reassuring for royalists.

“I say to doctors who use homeopathy: if you can identify this you’d have discovered a whole new force in physics. Either there is no effect, in which case you shouldn’t be charging people money, or there is an effect, in which case you should prove it and win the Nobel prize.”

The fact that homeopathic doctors and patients do claim there is a benefit he puts down to the human body’s power to restore itself when given the psychological boost of someone else’s concentrated concern and attention: the average half hour to an hour, rather than the typical eight-minute NHS GP consultation. “There was a time when old-fash-ioned family doctors used to hand out placebos but now they aren’t allowed to because it’s against medical ethics. Now it’s only the homeopaths who are allowed to benefit from the placebo effect.

“Homeopathy started out about 200 years ago at a time when conventional medicine was considerably more dangerous. At least they weren’t applying leeches.” Dawkins insists that phenomena including religion, myths, superstition and science need to be seen in their historical context. He quotes the science fiction author Arthur C Clarke’s Third Law, “any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.

“But you can’t simply reverse that and say that because it calls itself magic now it must be future science.”

The article in the New York times gives a good overview on what the show is about and if you won’t be able to catch the show do read the article because it touches on most of the topics that will be covered in the show.

I am happy that finally such initiatives are taking place and being broadcast on national television…albeit on Channel 4.

The sugar pill that kills

2007-08-02T18:34:00.001-04:00

In our quest for finding remedies for diseases, we have acquired a deep knowledge of many of the diseases. Even though there are still a number of diseases that we cannot clearly understand or treat, we have made an incredible amount of progress. On our way to these discoveries, we have also tried out therapies which were designed out of limited knowledge and ignorance about the inner workings of the human body. One such treatment was designed by a German man named Samuel Hahnemann (1755 – 1843). Now we are talking about a time when the cures were worse than the disease. It was a common practice to use leeches to treat everything from fever to menopause.

The way that menstruation was seen during the 1700s was as a way of the body to get rid of impurities. So when menstruation ceased during menopause, what was thought to happen was that the blood remained within the body, clotting and stagnating ... The logical solution was the application of leeches — to a woman's genitalia, to her back, or to the nape of her neck, to try and remove this excess blood. — Dr Marilys Guillemin

Ouch! The good old days seem not so good anymore.

Okay so if you were a woman from the 18th century your options were (a) get a blood sucking leech stuck on your crotch or (b) eat two sugar pills (or whatever form they sold their sugar pills then) a day. I am sure that the woman without a leech stuck upon her crotch reported that she felt healthier than her leech therapy availing counterpart. So it wasn’t a surprise that homeopathic treatments became immensely popular.

Hahnemann came up with treatments based on the “laws of the similar”. It is something akin to ‘it takes a thorn to remove a thorn’. He came up with the idea that if you give the patient an extremely small amount of the substance that is causing the disease then you will get better. So if you were suffering from malaria and you go to the homeopath, s/he would give you an extremely diluted (no not plasmodium!) 18th century version of the causative agent of malaria. By extremely dilute, I mean that the substance is diluted 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. In other words pure water.

Some of you might say that nobody with a sound mind would treat severe diseases like cancer or malaria with homeopathic medicine. From my personal experience, I know that people don’t always make the right call given the choice between Western medicine and herbal (no side effects) treatments. When I was about six years old, I got malaria and my father decided that I should take homeopathic treatment for the fever. I ended up with malaria so severe that I had to be admitted to a hospital for several days. Thankfully I was able to recover completely after I was taken to a proper doctor. But even so my father still gets homeopathic prescriptions for many of his illnesses.

When people resort to homeopathic medicines for conditions that are chronic or not treatable by Western medicine I deem it the same as praying. Although the medication does not make the patient better it also does not make the condition worse. However, there are also people who rely solely on homeopathic remedies and succumb to the disease when they could’ve made a recovery with allopathic treatment. I knew one such woman, who lived in my neighborhood and died of jaundice because she decided to take the homeopathy pills (solely) instead of allopathic medicine.

This is one of the many examples of the gullibility of the masses that blindly follow arcane ideologies. People don’t bother to assess the authenticity of the treatment that they choose. If it is popular it must work. The quack doctors who practice this stuff are licensed by government institutions giving B.H.M.S. and D.H.M.S. degrees to sell sugar pills to the sick that are in need of some real medicine. It is no wonder that homeopathy is not regarded as the quack medicine that it really is.

Many of you might even know people who swear by the benefits of homeopathic treatments…people who have recovered by taking homeopathic pills where allopathic treatments failed. These folks have simply experienced a placebo effect or have recovered as a result of the natural healing process of the body. Like they say, “If you take medicine to cure a cold it would take a week and if you don’t take medicine it will take seven days.” Our body is a complex system that has evolved with an arsenal of defense mechanisms to combat the myriad of bugs on its own. Most of the time, we are successful in warding off these menacing diseases without any medication. The amount of recovery time varies and sometimes people take homeopathic medicines after an initial round of allopathic medicine. The allopathic medicine can reduce the burden of pathogens and give the body a chance to recuperate and sometimes the recovery time is long. So although the relief was primarily due to the allopathic medicine, since the patient’s full recovery happens while taking the homeopathic follow-up treatment, the patient’s belief in homeopathic medicine is re-iterated.

Some people in developing countries also lend credibility to homeopathy because of its popularity in the West. This kind of thinking comes from the common misconception that the Western world is made up of (scientifically) progressive thinkers. Even though most of the cutting edge research comes from developed countries, the majority of the Western population is superstitious and largely ignorant about science.

The popularity of homeopathic medicine is such that it is accepted as a branch of major hospitals (affiliated with research centers). The problem with this is that its association with research hospitals is giving it undue credibility. Unlike the extensive research that backs all the allopathic drugs before they hit the market, most of the homeopathic medicines have not even been tested, partly because it is impossible to test something that doesn’t even exist in the final prescription as a result of the incredible dilutions. The few studies that claim to test homeopathic medicine do so without proper controls, statistics or scientific methodology or protocols. Batra hospital and research center is one such hospital in New Delhi that offers alternative medicine in addition to allopathic treatments. Here are some of the quotes from their website that advertises the benefits of homeopathic treatment.

Homoeopathy: Magic of minimum dose:
Homoeopathy has a unique approach for preparation of drugs in which the end result will contain only the ‘dynamic curative power’ of drug substance, devoid of any original crude substance. By a special mode of preparation called ‘potentization’, over 2500 homeopathic medicines are prepared from sources such as vegetables, animals, minerals, chemicals, etc. Hence homeopathic remedies with its ultra minute doses are non-toxic, absolutely harmless and bring about SAFE CURE.

Of course it is harmless, you are prescribing water!

Homoeopathy offers wonder treatment for Viral infections:
Viral infections such as common cold, influenza, measles, Chickenpox, mumps, viral hepatitis (jaundice), viral meningitis etc. are very well treated with homoeopathy.

Now this is where it gets scary. If they were selling drugs to treat common cold it would be nothing more than fraud. But they are making false claims about curing diseases that can be fatal if left untreated. They are murdering people.

So in a nutshell, homeopathy is a large scale fraud operation that needs to be thwarted by educating people and not associating such quack therapies with hospitals and research centers. The government needs to take an active role in condemning such medical malpractices instead of certifying these mass-murdering witch-doctors.

If you are interested in reading more about why homeopathy is quack medicine check out this article called Homeopathy: The ultimate fake by Stephen Barett M.D.

If you would rather watch a video then check out “Scams, Sasquatch, and the Supernatural” by Brian Brushwood

(Also crossposted at my new blog for science writing)

Miss Potter

2007-07-28T00:01:00.001-04:00

I am not entirely sure how I ended up watching the movie Miss Potter. The DVD cover had a photo of Renee Zellweger’s and Ewan McGregor in a lip lock. Did Zellweger snag a typecast role of a Bridget Jones like character? The blurb about the movie on the back of the DVD case screamed sappy romantic comedy as well. So my expectation for this movie was set to the likes of “the holiday” and “the family stone”. I was pleasantly surprise to find that the movie was so much more than a silly romantic comedy. Even with the directorial attempts to mellow down Miss Potter’s story she comes across as the fierce firebrand feminist that she must’ve been. After I watched the movie I realized that categorizing this movie as a silly romantic comedy was an evil marketing ploy.

Miss Potter is a movie based on the true story of an extraordinary woman called Beatrix Potter who struggled against the societal constrains of being a woman in a time (early 1900s) when women were compelled to become housewives. In her quest to become a published writer and artist she fought tooth and nail to become a financially self-sufficient woman. She reminded me of J. K. Rowling, not merely for the common denominator of Potter but for their struggle (as women) to become published writers and their amazing success as writers of children’s books. Isn’t it disgraceful that after all the struggle women have gone through to be able to make it in a man’s world, even today, Joanne had to publish her books under the name J.K. Rowling to conceal her identity as a woman, in an effort to appeal to the male readers? Maybe a similar reasoning went into the marketing strategy of Miss Potter. Who would want to watch a movie about a woman protagonist who struggled to be accepted as a scientist, writer and artist? The audience would much rather prefer Miss Potter to be a love story. The movie makers took a lot of liberties in the storytelling and as a result compromised on Potter’s achievements. Potter had printed and sold some of her stories on her own but in the movie all the props for publishing are given to the male lead that Potter falls in love with. I guess they didn’t want the guy to look like the side-kick and wanted him to have a substantial role in Potter’s success as a writer. The movie makers entirely ignored many of Potter’s accomplishments so that she does not overshadow the other (male) characters. There was not even a mention of her scientific achievements.

I am a little miffed at all the historical inaccuracies of the movie but at the same time I was glad that this movie introduced me to this wonderful woman. I wish I had read all the stories about Peter rabbit and Jemima Puddle Duck when I was little. But like they say, ‘better late than never’. So I bought her entire published collection and although the stories are for little kids I must admit that I enjoyed reading some of those stories even now. You have to read the Jemima Puddle duck story if you haven’t already.

So here is remembering Miss Potter who was an extraordinary woman and still wins the hearts of people with her amusing stories. Happy Birthday to you Miss Potter ! I wish I could be half as accomplished as you were.

[ This review is also posted at http://moviereviewsanddiscussions.blogspot.com ]

Chapter 9: The elephant man

2007-07-24T00:01:00.001-04:00

Vyasa is waiting at D’rakshas, the local bar, chewing on some Juicy Root gum. Earlier in the day, he got a pigeon mail from Ganapati.

Running errands for mom. Will be a little late.

–G.

Vyasa is a little nervous as this is his first time in the bar. He straightens up and shifts his weight in the seat as he sees a beautiful woman approach him. She looks a little familiar and Vyasa jogs his memory to no avail. He wonders if she was in one of the Play Apsara center folds.

Waitress (non-chalantly): “Welcome to D’rakshas. My name is Laupadi.”
Vyasa: “My name is Vyasa. It is an honor to meet you.”
Laupadi: “That’s nice…what do you want to drink.”
Vyasa: “I will have a glass of soma, but I insist that I will pay.”
Laupadi (chuckles): “You are funny.”

A familiar voice interjects.

Ganapati: “No he is not. He is just weird. I will have a glass of soma on the rocks please.”
Laupadi: “Sorry, we are all out of rocks.”
Ganapati: “Alright, just soma then.”
Laupadi: “Okay. I will be back soon.”

Laupadi walks away from the table. Ganapati pulls up a chair.

Vyasa: “Ugh! Do you have to ruin everything? I was just getting acquainted with the kind lady”

Vyasa dreamily checks out Laupadi heading towards the bar. Ganapati snaps his fingers in Vyasa’s face.

Ganapati: “Oye, snap out of it. The kind lady happens to be a man.”
Vyasa (in a hushed whisper): “No!”
Ganapati: “Trust me, I have a nose for these things.”
Vyasa: “My God G…really? But that is impossible. No man can have that body….that body…did you even look at her? I don’t believe you.”
Ganapati: “Heard of tantric sex change?”
Vyasa: “What? You don’t believe in those quack witch doctors do you? This is ridiculous. You can’t change your gender. It is ludicrous. Okay quiet here she comes.”

Laupadi approaches them and places the drinks on the table. Vyasa has an abnormal grin on his face while Ganapati looks bored. Vyasa stares at Laupadi with narrow eyes.

Laupadi (talks to Ganapati): “You are right, he is weird.”

Laupadi briskly walks back to the bar.

Vyasa: “You are right her face looks weird, like it is artificial…it almost does not look human.”

Ganapati menacingly stares at Vyasa.

Vyasa: “Ahem! This soma is great. Did you try it?”
Ganapati: “Alright let’s just get it out. I know I am a little different looking. I see how people look at me when I enter a room. I am like the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.”
Vyasa: “What? Don’t be silly. You are one of the most normal people I’ve met.”
Ganapati: “I have a trunk for a nose.”

Ganapati wriggles his trunk in the air inspecting it with his eyes squinting.

Vyasa: “Oh come on…it is hardly noticeable.”
Ganapati: “You are saying that there is nothing odd about my face?”
Vyasa: “Its…its…its um.”
Ganapati: “Listen, I know what I look like and I am not ashamed of it.”

Ganapati gulps down the drink and signals Laupadi from across the room to refill his glass. Laupadi comes by the table and refills the glass. Ganapati asks Laupadi to leave the pitcher at the table and continues gulping the drink furiously.

Ganapati: “You are a nice person Vyasa…no you are not nice…you are great. But you know who is an ass? My dad.”
Vyasa: “You don’t mean that G. Believe me, everybody has issues with their parents but every parent loves their child.”
Ganapati: “Not my father he doesn’t. You want to know why I look like this?”
Vyasa: “Alright I admit it. I am a little curious to know how you ended up with a…”
Ganapati: “Elephant’s head?”
Vyasa: “Yeah”
Ganapati: “Well I was a normal human baby when I was born. But my dad didn’t even know he had a son. He was away on one of his rock gigs.”
Vyasa: “Wow! Is your dad a rock star? Is it someone I know?”
Ganapati: “He wears a leopard skirt and carries a snake around his neck. Need I say more?"
Vyasa: “Your dad is the drummer for the Himalayan Howlers! I love them…Shivar me timbers is one of my favorite songs.”
Ganapati (a little annoyed): “As I was saying…”
Vyasa (sensing Ganapati’s tone): “Sorry, go on.”
Ganapati: “Well…he is such an attention whore. Did you see his latest look? He has dread locks with a water sprinkler as an accessory. Ever heard of less is more dad?”
Vyasa: “So he is a little extravagant with his wardrobe. I’m sure he loves you even though he may not show it as well. Different people have different ways of expressing their feelings. It would kill my dad to pat my back or say something nice.”
Ganapati: “Has your Dad ever chopped off your head?”

Vyasa gasps and looks aghast. Ganapati chugs down the remaining drink to empty the pitcher.

Vyasa: “What? Your dad did that to you? Why?”
Ganapati: “Because he is a lunatic murderer.”
Vyasa: “That is horrible.”
Ganapati: “Yeah he is the dad of the year.”
Vyasa: “So is that how?”
Ganapati: “Yeah pretty much. He comes home after a long tour one day. Mom was in the shower and she had specifically asked me to not let anyone in the house. I had never seen Dad so when he returned I treated him like a perfect stranger. He reeked of alcohol and didn’t make any sense when he talked. So I didn’t let him into the house. Before I knew what was happening he chopped off my head.”

Vyasa listens to Ganapati with an expression of disbelief.

Ganapati: “Mom threw a fit when she saw what he had done and told dad that I was his son. She cried uncontrollably and demanded I be brought to life. I wish she would’ve done it herself instead of asking my drunken dad. He took me somewhere in the forest and realized that he had carried the body but had forgotten the head. It was too late to get my head because the head wasn’t kept on ice. So he decided to find an alternative. He found a baby elephant around where we were and chopped off its head.”
Vyasa: “He killed a baby elephant? This is beyond horrible.”
Ganapati: “And then he superglues the elephants head onto my body. Voila!”
Vyasa: “Wow! I mean I thought I was the ultimate gruesome fiction writer but even I couldn’t have made up something so awful. G you need a butt load of therapy.”
Ganapati: “Tell me about it.”
Vyasa: “How could your mom stick with him? She should’ve gotten a divorce.”
Ganapati: “She wanted to but my dad is a very powerful man. He has a cult following and he is worshipped like a God. Dad threatened mom. He told her that nobody would believe a woman’s word over a man’s word and that he could easily prove that I wasn’t his son. There was no facial resemblance after all.”
Vyasa: “Oh no.”
Ganapati: “So now you know.”
Vyasa: “There are corrective surgery options available nowadays you know?”
Ganapati: “Why would you say that? Why would I want a corrective surgery?”
Vyasa: “I thought you … never mind.”

Laupadi comes by the table and clears the glasses.

Laupadi: “The bar is closed now. I will leave the bill here. Thanks.”

Vyasa and Ganapati sip the remains of the drink and place gold coins on the table.

Vyasa: “Are you coming by my cottage over the weekend?”
Ganapati: “Hic!”
Vyasa: “Great. How are you going to get home? I will hail you a chariot.”
Ganapati: “Don’t worry I can ride. I came here on my mouse.”
Vyasa: “You rode a mouse? Okay! I am taking you home.”

Vyasa struggles to support Ganapati’s weight but his knees buckle.

Laupadi: “Need a hand?”

Vyasa grins sheepishly. Laupadi gives Ganapati a boost and gets him off the chair effortlessly.

Vyasa: “Wow! You are pretty…”

Vyasa luckily finishes the sentence in his mind – ‘strong for a woman’.

Laupadi (smiles): “Why thanks sweety.”

Laupadi and Vyasa move steadily towards the chariot stand and get Ganapati into the chariot. Vyasa thanks Laupadi and hands her a generous tip. Laupadi smiles and heads back to the bar. The chariot rolls on towards Ganapati’s mansion while Ganapati blissfully snores with drool coming out of his mouth. Vyasa leans back and rests his head as the chariot rolls on into the dark forest.

Simpsons, how dare you?

2007-07-17T17:25:00.001-04:00

As a promotion for the upcoming movie, the Simpsons guys have changed twelve 7-elevens into Kwik-E-Marts. The Kwik-E-Mart products include Buzz coca-cola, Krusty-O’s cereal and Bart’s favorite comic called Radioactive man. But the most anticipated product, Duff beer did not make it to the shelves. The reason being (you are not going to believe this) the movie is PG 13. You would think that people would be outraged by this promotional move but there have been no protests so far. The Simpsons controversy is about Apu.

In Simpsons TV show, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon or Apu, is an Asian Indian immigrant who owns the Kwik-E-Mart and sells overpriced merchandise to Americans who complain about the prices but buy the stuff anyway. The Springfield residents are often shown to be verbally abusive to Apu and sometimes even trash the store. Despite the ridicule from customers (to avoid losing business?) Apu never fails to say the customary, “thank you, come again”. Naturally, as a part of the real life Kwik-E-Mart theme you are given the same greeting by Indians dressed like Apu. This has offended some Indians who say “no thank you” to this irksome campaign.

Being America’s news leader, CNN quickly picked up this story and asked hard hitting questions like, “Considering the profits, is stereotyping people as a part of a promotional campaign really offensive?” One responsible angry Indian voiced his protest on CNN by expressing his disgust at being represented as Apu. The protestor stated that the promotion would have never dared to cast an Ahmed in the same role and concluded that it is downright racism. Due to time constrains most part of the interview did not make it on air. Nevertheless CNN thwarted the possibility of racist propaganda by featuring cheerful Indian staff playing the role of Apu in the real life Kwik-E-Mart. This was followed by a happy Kwik-e-mart (Indian) owner who said that his business has been booming since he did the Simpsons makeover to the store and is more than happy to say “thank you, come again and again” if it meant more business. Thus, CNN established from this incisive coverage that the Indians are in fact not offended and are more than happy to cash in on the profits that this promotion is bringing in.

But is this campaign really racist? The answer is no according to some (liberal know-nothings who have nothing better to do than watch such distasteful TV shows) people. The Simpsons supporters say that there is no insinuation of one race/ethnicity being superior to another on Simpsons and that the show has always mocked racial stereotypes on TV without a racist agenda. But the outraged protestors insist that the racist motivations are transparent and evident from their movie promotion.

The protestors urge Indians to be seriously offended and if possible take a day off from work in protest. Join in the fervor. The protestors have come up with a (not so catchy) motto, “equal mockery of all races every time a racial stereotype joke is cracked or no racial stereotype mocking jokes at all”. Some protestors have demanded Simpsons promotions to be extended to Italian restaurants and as a part of the promotion, ask the waiters to dress like Fat Toni and his mafia gang and threaten customers who do not pay a handsome tip.

The Simpsons movie

2007-07-17T14:01:00.001-04:00

Simpsons movie is coming out on July 27, 2007 and I can hardly wait. The previews look hilarious. I have already picked out my favorite lines from the previews...like the one where Homer frantically looks through the bible and throws it aside disappointed and says, "This book doesn't have any answers". (Har har!)

Even though the movie comes out next week ya don't have to twiddle yer fingers. If ya ever wondered how ya would look like as a Simpsons character ya can head over to this site and find out.

Here be mine:

Potter plot challenge

2007-07-13T14:22:00.001-04:00

BBC has announced a writing contest for all the Harry Potter fans. The challenge is to write the Harry Potter story so far (Books 1-6) in 100 words or less. The winning story will be published on BBC before the Deathly Hallows is released. So are you up for it?

Go here for more details of the contest.

Update:

On Drunken Master's idea of collaborative effort how about 6 of us get together and each person writes a 16 word summary on one of the 6 Potter books. Any takers?

Transformers and Potter review

2007-07-12T15:41:00.001-04:00

Transformers:

I felt like the story for Transformers was a well conceived idea that was aborted before it was carried to full term. The movie was a one trick pony and without the transforming there was nothing more to it. The dialogues were pitiful and the story line was predictable.

As usual the good guys came from a poorly funded lab and so had the older technology and the villains had great funding and so had all the cutting edge gizmo. The adapting morphing gibberish speaking robot on the evil side was especially cool. But in the end good conquers evil with all the set backs. Oops, sorry I gave away the ending without a plot spoiler warning. But seriously, if you didn’t know the ending before watching this movie you got to be from another planet.

Every action movie has to dabble into philosophy…the philosophy usually being science is evil. But in this one it was, humans are sadistic war mongering bastards and deserve to die but even monsters deserve a second chance except if the monsters happen to be robots that are more advanced than the transformer robots.

Then of course there is the love angle…well okay being a teenage centric movie it was more of ‘coming of age’ sexual tension. Watching the sweat covered tight abs of a (teenage) girl glistening in the sun, made me feel like a cradle robbing pervert…even though I am a non-lesbo and non-man.

Overall the movie sucked like an average Hollywood flick. So go watch it for special effects but expect nothing more.

Harry Potter and the order of phoenix:

Never compare a movie with a book (it was based on) because the book will always outdo the movie. How can any film-maker meet the expectations of a reader’s fantabulous mind imagery? The book is not limited by length, time, budget or special effects. David Yates, the director of HP 5 did a decent job considering that he was faced with the additional challenge of directing the HP movie based on the longest book (so far) of the HP series.

The special effects (as with most movies nowadays) were very well done…especially the final battle scenes. It was a good editorial decision to not drag a movie for more than 2.5 hours but the editing took its toll on the movie by making it incoherent in many parts. I can’t imagine how the people who have not read the book could keep up with the movie plot. Yet there were scenes that could’ve been vastly improvised. Especially in scenes like the one where you know who (and by you know who I don’t mean he who shall not be named) is struck by the avada kedavra curse and falls in the arch and Lupin holds onto Harry who is now squirming and screaming noooooooo…in super slow motion. Ugh!

The actress who played Dolores Umbridge was very successful in bringing out the viciousness of the character, all with a smile on her face. Luna “Loony” Lovegood was also perfect for the role. The only cast member I didn’t like was the guy who played (the new) Dumbledore. Even his walk is too hasty and unsophisticated for Dumbledore. Sheesh!

Anyhow, I was left pondering about the plot. Why wasn’t McGonagall at the ministry of magic in the final battle? In Book 5, why doesn’t Harry consort with McGonagall in Dumbledore’s absence as Dumbledore has already advised him to do that when he isn’t around or accessible? I want to end this post with a final comment which is really a general objection for all the stories with human transformation themes. Hulksters are you listening? You got to figure out what happens to the clothes during transformations. With JKR’s stories it is with Sirius, Lupin and Wormtail. When they become animals they shed their clothes but when they transform back they are never naked. Ok fine it is magic!

This review is also posted at http://moviereviewsanddiscussions.blogspot.com/

300 manages to offend Iranians

2007-07-10T16:36:00.001-04:00

The only good thing about the video is that someone in Iran decided to rap about it instead of bombing the nearest American embassy. Now if only this catches on in the middle east.

This video was made in protest of the movie 300.

Spooktacular movies

2007-07-06T17:21:00.001-04:00

One of the perks of being an atheist is that you don’t get spooked out by horror movies. Without the thrill of a good spook you are left with a predictable plot and special effects that rarely (if ever) are adequate enough to make the movie worth watching.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I watched (most of) ‘the skeleton key’ last night and actually liked it. Although I must admit that I watched the first and last 20 minutes of the movie (and I still dare critique the movie haha!), the unexpected twist in the end makes me predict that the movie may be worth the torture (anyone watched the entire movie?). I give this movie a “worth a watch” thumbs up.

Now the other horror movie that I watched had a mediocre plot and shabby dialogues. I only watched it to see Tony Shalhoub suffer through it. Poor guy must have accepted the role to pay his bills. I decided to watch the movie hoping that it would be hilarious to watch Tony Shalhoub scream and run around in panic (which it totally was). ‘Thir13en ghosts’ delivered a predictable plot, but an unexpected bonus was the CGI effects and creative movie sets. Kudos to the special effects guys for the make-up of the ghosts and the crazy maze they built. I give this movie a “worth a watch if it is playing on TV and you have nothing better to do” thumbs up.

Spooktacular worth watch suggestions welcome.

Independence day Americana

2007-07-05T00:09:00.000-04:00

A trip to the zooooooo

2007-07-02T14:37:00.000-04:00

Went to the zoo over the weekend because it is a great place to hone photography skills. I sure don't have the patience to sit in the wild for hours only for some no show. As usual the primate cell was the saddest one. But the other animals didn't look all that sad. In fact they seemed to do better than most humans I know. They don't have to sit in cubicles day after day only to be able to afford a certain life style. These buggers have it made. Sure they don't get to prance around in the jungle but the last I heard, the jungle is not the easiest place to live in.

In the zoo on the other hand there are no predators to worry about, no bills to pay and no hours to bill. It is a paid vacation. These free loaders get a fully loaded unit (no chance of temperature controlled dwellings in the jungle) and a full health coverage (including dental). The creators of the animated movie Madagascar got it right after all. Talking about animated features, you got to watch Ratatouille. Pixar has redeemed itself in my eyes after the Cars fiasco.

Anyway, getting back to the zoo, here are some photos of the party animals (and one particularly interesting plant):

The snoozer

Tug of war

The "Oh my" plant ;)

Get a room

Respect my authoritay!!

2007-07-02T14:21:00.000-04:00

The failed bombings in Glasgow and London have made the headlines for a couple of days now. Security is beefed up which means there will be endless lines at the airports and the airport security will have the green signal to anything from strip searches to anal probing. The security measures strangely resemble the panic of a chicken with its head cut off.

How do you find method in madness? If you think about it, almost anything can be used as a weapon. The target is the entire population of USA and UK. The borders are porous. The zealots are too many. To add to this explosive atmosphere there are foolish pranksters who get a kick out of creating panic in an edgy and nervous crowd. For instance, just after the UK bomb news appeared on the news some fellow went to a local airport in US and declared that he intends to blow up an entire city and that he was armed with explosives. The cops blocked the area and after hours of negotiations (or whatever it is that they do) the culprit was caught only to discover that he was making empty threats.

What resulted out of the incident was another new safety measure. The cops declared that they were going to do random searches of vehicles arriving at the airport. This meant that in addition to your inability to carry scissors or a bottle of drinking water on board, being subjected to random strip searches and wire tapping of your phone, the cops can now search your vehicle without a search warrant. Anything or anyone that is ‘suspicious looking’ is a fair game. What’s next? House searches without any warrants? This is like the Gestapo looking for Jews in Nazi Germany. Just like the terrorists, according to the new safety measures, the government is answerable only to God. (Dick Cheney is way ahead of the game).

If you are making plans for air travel and you are an Asian male with a goatee, shave it off today or you might find yourself on the next flight to Guantanamo Bay. In fact carry a copy of the bible and wear a big cross around the neck and paste some support the (US) troops, Jesus rocks and other Christian/patriotic logos on your suitcase. Even better carry a pair of red white and blue underwear…er…or may be not. Most importantly don’t forget to look unsuspicious.

Airport SecurityArtist Gary McCoy, Cagle Cartoons. Distributed to subscribers for publication by Cagle Cartoons, Inc.

In all fairness

2007-06-28T15:28:00.000-04:00

It is not unusual to find an Indian matrimony ad that would read:
“Looking for a (insert caste) well educated girl, fair and respects tradition.”

The ad might as well say, “Wanted a (virgin) woman who would serve as a sex slave and chambermaid. P.S. Blacks do not apply.”

In the same spirit Dhanashree M. gives her beauty tips to the brides to be. The article is titled ‘Whitening tips for you’ :

Fair complexion is a dream and achievement of everyone. In the marriage market
and dreams the first preference will be to those with a fair skin. Why should
you stay away from this perfect appearance? Try these handy beauty tips and see
the changes within a short period.

Growing up, I had come to accept that fairness of skin is the foremost standard of beauty. A song praising the beauty of a woman would inevitably have the word gori in it.

“Dhoop mein nikla na karo roop ki rani, gora rang kala na padh jaaye.”
Keeping in line with the lyrics, every well-adored Hindi film actress was fair.

Living in a white supremacist society, my lifesaver was that my parents did not hold the ‘white is beautiful’ outlook. But even so it was hard to keep me protected from the ire of the white skin worshipping neighbors.

The incident I am about to narrate happened when I was 5 years old. Being the first born child I was the apple of the eye…the star performer of the house. But after 4 years of my uncontested rule in the Blur household, my soon to be nemesis made his debut. I wasn’t a happy camper to find out that I suddenly had to share my fame and celebrity status in the household with my brand new brother who was a doodh ka dhoola, white complexioned baby boy.

My parents tried their best to keep the sibling jealousy (on my part) on the down low. But there were visitors and they came in waves. Comments about how pretty and fair the baby boy looks were made over and over. There was one woman (I fondly remember as the racist bitch) who lived in the house across from ours. She would make her friendly visits more often than I’d liked. She would say to me, “Oh how is it that your brother looks so fair and you look so dark?” I would feel very hurt and angry but I could never think of a good come back.

One evening, the woman paid a visit to our house and she sat on the couch conversing with my mother. I knew that it was inevitable that she will soon take a jibe at me. So the moment came. She decided to tease me a little differently. She said, “Crys, do you like your little brother?” Frankly, I would’ve liked the things to be the way they were before my brother arrived. Ever since my brother had made an appearance everything had changed for the worse. I did not answer. Then the woman continued, “I am going to take your brother with me”. This was it. This was my opportunity.

I quickly climbed on the couch and got hold of the woman’s hair and yanked it with all my strength. Even though I was five years old, I gathered enough strength to give her a professional hair yanking if there was any such thing. The woman started howling in pain. My mother tried hard to stop herself from laughing. She somehow managed to summon me in her best disciplining voice, “Crys! Let go…NOW!” I was determined to make a Jain monk out of that woman but my effort was thwarted as my mother pulled me away. The woman was visibly shaken. She said, “Bhaarich poolka aahe bhavacha.” (Loosely translated: My! I didn’t realize how attached she is to her brother). My mom escorted the woman out of our house.

The woman kept her distance from me but the social conditioning never stopped. I believed that to be appreciated by boys, I had to literally be the fairer sex. By the age of 12, I initiated the process of bleaching my skin in hopes of becoming a white princess. I bought a tube of ‘Fair and lovely’ ~~dream~~ cream which is doing just as well even today and is expanding its sales by marketing the ivory dream to Indian men.

I am not sure how I eventually opened myself to the idea that a dark skinned person can be beautiful too. Today, as I read the words of Maya Angelou in her book “I know why the cage bird sings”, my mind races back to my childhood.

Maya Angelou:

Wouldn’t they be surprised when one day I woke out of my black ugly dream, and my real hair, which was long and blond, would take the place of the kinky mass that Momma wouldn’t let me straighten? My light blue eyes were going to hypnotize them after all the things they said about my daddy being a Chinaman because my eyes were so small and squinty. Then they would understand why I had never picked up a Southern accent, or spoke the common slang, and why I had to be forced to eat pig tails and snouts. Because I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.

The last time I visited India, a cute old lady who I love dearly gave me some advice, “Girl you have finished your education and now it is time you found yourself a good man and you should not be picky. You are not fair skinned after all.”

I laughed a hearty laugh when I heard her say that. I laughed the way I do when I hear nine year old Eric Cartman crack a racist joke.

A strange encounter

2007-06-22T14:21:00.000-04:00

I was standing in a hotel lobby wearing a designer gown. Stitched to perfection by the fashion Gods, the gown was a chocolate ecstasy with a hint of delicate azure beading. The lobby was grandiose. The marble walls looked pristine, standing tall with pride. The ceiling was embellished with sparkling chandeliers and a soothing babble of bubbly fountain caressed my ears. Kids were running around and parents were ushering them. It was all very pleasant and peaceful. I approached the owner of the hotel, an old guy standing by the balcony overlooking his empire. He was none other than Hugh Hefner. I said to him, “You know, I have to hand it to you. I would’ve never guessed that you could make such a great family friendly hotel. You’ve done a spectacular job.” Hef smiled and said, “Thanks”. I woke up. I have been having some crazy dreams lately.

Moral combat

2007-06-15T17:05:00.000-04:00

I finally update my resume (one small step for me, mankind couldn’t care less). In the process I dusted off some dust-mites on my certificates from what seems like a lifetime ago. Turns out I was quite the winner growing up. My favorite certificate was for ‘bunny jumping’ when I was 6. For all the pervy pervertsons, bunny jumping is an innocent sport where kids hop like bunnies to get from point A to point B. Anyhow, I was saying that li’l Crys was quite the winner and so it was inevitable that I asked myself, “What happened?” This self-deprecating humor is killing me. Who am I kidding, of course I’m still quite the winner…solving 1024 pieces jigsaw puzzle in 3.25 days and all.

Anyway, I came across this particular piece of paper.

At the time, it didn’t strike me as anything odd but now I find it incredibly audacious of the school. Being the moral authority must be quite something. I was blissfully unaware of the fact that I was being graded for morality in addition to math, science and stuff. It is pretty amazing that we were expected to behave morally even before we understood the concept of morality. The least the school could do was hand out a book of moral codes …wait they did pawn off some mini bibles to us.

But all said and done, I am a certified moral person. In fact, I have decided to carry my character certificate with me. Next time a traffic cop pulls me over for speeding, it will be his word against mine and little would he know that I have a small piece of paper that would undeniably prove that I am right and he and his little speed gun gizmo is wrong. A moral person would never lie and if I say that I wasn’t speeding, that has to be the truth because I am a certified moral person. In your face cop! Burn!! He should know better than pull over a moral citizen. The only loophole in this plan being that the cop has a character certificate. But as far as I know, Americans don’t hand out character certificates. So ha!

Re: Mahabharat fan club

2007-06-14T11:11:00.000-04:00

G. bappa morya!

I want to give a pointer to this excellent post by Falstaff titled "Brothers in arms". Falstaff does an analysis on the role (or lack there of) of Nakul and Sahadev in Mahabharat.

P.S. Don't even think about asking, "when is the next MB post expected?"

Run

2007-06-08T14:32:00.001-04:00

She stood in a cold wooden cottage along with 8 other girls. Some of the girls stood there defiantly while others looked distressed and disoriented. The girls were surrounded by a group of armed men, who were parading their weapons threateningly. The girls weren’t welcome. An abrupt questioning began.

A man, who seemed to be the leader of the group, spoke sternly, “You know what you have done. There is one thing you women have in common.”
One of the girls interrupted, “Being an Asian has nothing to do with my actions and you are fully aware of that.”

She didn’t know what the girl spoke of but there was no doubt in her mind that the girl’s words could cost all of them their lives. Why was that girl being brash? They were clearly not in a position to challenge the authority.

The man yelled, “It has everything to do with you being an Asian.” The other men get the cue. A gun is placed on the defiant girl’s throat, piercing into her skin. Then a gun is pulled on another girl’s forehead and one more into another girl’s mouth in quick succession making it clear that no one is safe.

At this point her brain kicks into survival mode. She couldn’t hear what the guy was saying…just some muffled sounds. It was clear that she had two options. Either she could stand there cowering like a sheep and hope that the men would have mercy on her and release her or die trying to save her life. She felt it in her gut that the men had no intention of sparing anyone’s life. She made a run for her life. She dashed out of the cottage, expecting bullets to shower her back. The only clear path in sight was to take the wooden bridge going downhill from the cottage. She turned around but the men weren’t on her tail yet. Maybe they were unprepared for this or may be they wanted to secure the other girls. Either way, she had a head start.

She ran some more and turned back and saw the men emerge out of the cottage. Cold, dark metals strapped firmly to their shoulders, the men sprinted effortlessly. She tried to increase her pace and by now had almost made it across the bridge. She looked beyond the bridge as the men were closing in and felt sick inside her stomach. She realized that the bridge dead ended into the ocean. The men were gaining on her. She thought of jumping into the water, but how long could she stay afloat? Drown or get shot at? She decided to jump. She hit the turbulent waters. Even though she had learned to swim as a child, the training hadn’t prepared her to remain afloat in the ocean. Swimming in the ocean was a completely different ball game. She looked for something to hold onto. After almost getting knocked unconscious by hitting against one of the pillars holding up the bridge she somehow pulled herself onto a ledge under the bridge. The men retreated knowing that she was as good as dead in the ocean. She knew she was running out of energy and would not be able to hold up there much longer. She was going to die trying…she was not ready to give up.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She was in a house, reunited with her clan. She was a part of some organization, perhaps? It was all hazy to her now. But she remembers that there was a sense of urgency as if they were in some underground resistance. She felt a strong kinship to the group, although she wasn’t related to them. She and her boyfriend were about to leave the house to go to a regular eat out place. A close ally from the clan got word that the place they were about to visit was a trap. There were snipers waiting for her to arrive, ready to take her out. They knew that she had managed to escape alive and that she knew too much or may be she had done nothing at all. Maybe she didn’t have to be a heretic to get in trouble. The times were such that trouble found you, whether you asked for it or not.

She was on the run again. No place was safe for more than a day. She had to move constantly. This time she had an accomplice…her boyfriend. They made their way to the railway station and waited for the next train, trying to look inconspicuous. How easy it is to take a life nowadays. One click of a trigger is all it takes. It is easy…too easy. Her eyes were constantly moving across the crowd. The train arrived and just as she was about to exude a sigh of relief, she heard a loud explosion shatter one of the compartments of the train. The two of them ran out of the station. They didn’t know where to go. They got into a taxi and asked the driver to take them north.

They finally had a sense of some relief. They sat in the taxi in silence. The driver was now close to the place where she was held at gun point just the day before. Or was it a couple of days back? She had lost all sense of time. The taxi driver pulled over and declared he couldn’t go any further. She was trying to talk him into driving forward, but her boyfriend realized they were wasting time. They were in the lion’s mouth and had to find a way out. They had to hitch another cab before they were spotted. As they made their way on the street, they realized that there weren’t any cabs in the vicinity. She was as vigilant as could be. She stopped in her tracks as she saw a line of snipers waiting in the balcony of a building which was less than a block away. She signaled her boyfriend and they quickly took cover. Her boyfriend’s composure was about to break down. She could sense desperation in his voice, “My father is dead and my mother is all alone. She needs me. I don’t want to die.” How could she have been so oblivious? What had she done! She had jeopardized his life unthinkingly. She rubbed her forehead anxiously. How could a selfless act of heresy become a selfish act of a wayward child?

She decided to run back to the cab and force the taxi driver to drive them out of this mess to safety. The driver was reluctant but they somehow managed to coerce him into driving. The hesitant driver was driving too slowly and that was drawing attention in the fast moving traffic on the street. Two men accosted the taxi. The men reached for their guns and opened fire.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up…feeling vulnerable, tense like I was about to be hunted down and killed like a house rat. It was a sick feeling. Dreams have this disconcerting quality of seeming more real than reality. The colors are vivid, intentions are transparent and the emotions are gripping. My brain probably concocted this dream from what I have been reading and watching recently like Sophie Scholl (the strong defiant woman), Nazi Germany, Idi Amin’s murderous rule, the dot buster gang, religious intolerance and the recent rhetoric of patriotism in the US. Four hours after waking up, I still can’t shake away the tense feelings in my mind. What is really scary is that there could be someone out there living this nightmare…probably in one of the warring countries…being hunted down, for having the ‘wrong’ ethnicity, skin color or simply the audacity to speak their mind. I shudder.

Unite and conquer

2007-06-06T14:35:00.001-04:00

Date: 1 June 07
Time: 5 ish o’clock
Location: Crys Blur’s living room
Weather: Raining billis and kuttas
Mission: Solve 1026 piece photomosaic jigsaw puzzle (that’s right, 1026)
Motivation: Strong

Day 1:
Subject 1 (Crys) and Subject 2 (Buck) clear the dining table and dump all the contents of the puzzle box on it.

The subjects are confronted with a tall mountain of jigsaw pieces.

Step 1:
Demolish the mountain.

Step 2:
Straighten up all the puzzle pieces such that no piece is hidden from the eye.

Step 3:
Realize that the eye needs light and lots of it. Also realize that there isn’t any space left on the dining table to assemble the puzzle.

Step 4:
Move the dining table to a well lit room. Take over another table and designate it as the assembly table. Assort the puzzle pieces into groups based on color. Call the pizza guy.

Step 5: With tummies full, the subjects seriously stare at the task at hand.

Step 6: Subject 2, being a veteran puzzle solver (relatively speaking) decides to isolate the border pieces (with smooth edges) first. Meanwhile subject 1, a puzzle virgin, deciding to take her own approach, begins assembling a random part of the puzzle.

Step 7: Subject 2 gets immersed in resolving the border issue, but the line of control starts getting out of control. Subject 2 furiously begins to calculate the number of pieces on each side for a 27 inch by 20 inch puzzle with 1026 pieces. The math-phobic Subject 1 stares in disbelief that Subject 2 could somehow find a way to introduce a math problem in the middle of such a unique spatial orientation problem.

Step 8: Subject 1 realizes that she would be alone for a while as Subject 2 unleashes the inner engineer/math nerd, and equipped with his arsenal of tape measure, calculator, paper and pencil, goes into a serious number crunching mode. Subject 1 studiously continues work on her part of the puzzle muttering “Blue Flowers Red Thorns…” over and over.

Step 9: Subject 2 screams, “It is 38 by 27! We need 126 pieces for the border!! Wait a minute. That is 3 times 42. Maybe we’re on to something.” and resumes the hunt for the edge pieces.

Step10: Subject 2 starts randomly aligning the edge pieces based on previously measured and marked dimensions. After an impressive 100 odd pieces, Subject 1 eyes Subject 2’s progress enviously, and shelving her modest assembly of some 10 odd pieces, joins the volunteers for the border control efforts.

Step 11: Even with all the edge pieces located, the border control project progresses at snail speed.

Mood: Gloomy

Step 12: Subject 1 has a ‘waaaiit a nimit’ moment (#1). All the mini-pictures on the jigsaw puzzle pieces are facing north-south. In a jiffy the border is done.

Mood: Ecstatic

Step 13: The subjects celebrate their success with the border securing project with a high five. 136 pieces down, 888 pieces to go. The subjects retire to bed recouping for another day.

Day 2
Time: Noonish

Subject 1 rolls out of bed and goes through the ritual of brush-tea-cookies. Subject 1 decides to give the jigsaw puzzle a crack by herself.

Step 14: Assort jigsaw pieces in the north south orientation.

Half way into step 14 there is a rumble in the tummy. Rumble is pacified with yet another take out.

Step 15: Subject 1 hunts and fetches puzzle pieces by hunching over the dining table and realizes that at this rate, she is going to end up at the chiropractor center to realign the spine that is twisted from hunching. Subject 2 decides to join in for a couple of hours and quits again. Subject 1 continues obsessively.

Step 16: Subject 1 has ‘waaiit a nimit’ moment (#2). Instead of hunting and fetching for puzzle pieces she decides to pick up pieces with distinguishable pictures and hunts for the location on the template poster. Even with recurring motifs in the puzzle, it is easier to look for patterns on the poster than located a piece in an ocean of puzzle pieces. Plus this strategy gives relief to the spine as hunching is not required anymore.

The strategy works well but it is 3am and Subject 1 decides to reluctantly retire to bed.

Day 3
Time: Noonish
Subject 1 is excited to continue with the new and improved strategy. The pace of progress is much quicker now.

Subject 2 realizes the weekend is almost over and there is much laundering, grocery shopping and such to be done. Subject 1 finally relinquishes the task at hand to join in with the chores, partly out of guilt but mostly because her eyeballs had turned many shades of pink and red. (I know there is a visine for that).

Time: 10pm

Subject 1 coerces Subject 2 to take a crack at the puzzle for 20 minutes. Five hours later (yes it is past 3am now) the puzzle is oh-so close to be done. Out of sheer exhaustion and obligation to worldly duties, the subjects decided to call it a night.

Day 4:
Subject 2 is in cubicle bright and early. Subject 1 strolls out of bed at around 10:30 am and calls Subject 1 to plan another outing for lunch. (Hehe). After a satisfying lunch Subject 1 takes a final crack at the puzzle.

Before you know it, Subject 2 is back at home and joins in with fervor of finishing the puzzle.

Finally at around 10pm the last piece of the puzzle lays to rest as do the subjects.

Mission: Accomplished!

The puzzle now hangs on a wall, neatly framed and all.

--The end--

{On a side note, I think that anyone considering a research career should buy one of these and use it as a diagnostic tool for one’s liking for research. It tests your patience and organizational skills to no end. Of course there are so many other skills that you require to be in research but looking for a needle in a haystack along with repetitive mundane experiments and a thirst for puzzle solving is very much a part of the process. If at the end of solving a 1026 piece (or more) jigsaw puzzle, you think you would buy another one of those then you would probably enjoy research. }

Review: Sophie Scholl (The final days)

2007-05-31T17:32:00.002-04:00

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst
Photo from wikipedia

"Sophie Scholl – the final days” is a movie about a German girl who was a valiant student activist against the Nazi Germany. This movie is unlike Schindler’s list in that there isn’t any atrocity portrayed on the screen. The extravagant bright red Nazi flag looming in the background depicts the blood bathed Nazi regime effortlessly. Even though the movie title has the words ‘the final days’ I was gripped by fear for Sophie’s safety while I witnessed Sophie’s defiance to the Gestapo. How did she find the courage to stand for her convictions in the most treacherous of times?

When I am confronted with movie depiction of idealistic revolutionaries such as Sophie, I always suspect that there may be biased glorification of the heroic character. Thoughts like how could anyone know what Sophie said to the Nazi interrogators? ...and such. It turns out that the movie script is based on sources such as original interrogation records, video footage of “people’s court” proceedings by the judge Roland Freisler and interview with the surviving members of the White Rose and Scholl family. So when you hear Sophie talk in the movie, those are her words and not the screenwriter’s twist of imagination. The knowledge that this movie is closely if not exactly based on a true story makes it overbearing to watch at times.

The events depicted in the movie happened about 50 years ago but the debates that transpire between Sophie and the Gestapo are (strikingly) reminiscent of current state of affairs. According to the Gestapo, speaking out against Hitler’s war was commensurate with not supporting the troops and deemed unpatriotic. Ring any bells?

The only complaint I have about this movie is that it sort of pitches the idea of religious righteousness (in form of Sophie) against immoral atheism (synonymous to Hitler’s regime). Sophie was a God fearing protestant but from her words it is clear that her fight was for freedom of thought and speech and not out of religious fervor. At the young age of 21 it was understandable if Sophie turned to God for strength and hope. So the movie made me cringe in the aspect that this movie (intentionally or not) fuels the idea that atheism leads to immorality.

Over all I loved the movie for its simplicity and realistic depiction of a heroic woman.

Ringu a bell

2007-05-29T15:37:00.001-04:00

Long long ago…in the year 2002 to be exact…I watched a movie about a little girl, who lived in a well…and possibly in a videotape…sounds ludicrous? It sure does now but when I first watched it, The Ring freaked me out. (I swore that I will never watch Ringu so don’t even bother). I still haven’t figured out why it freaked me out so much because usually I crack up when I watch horror movies (exorcist included). But there was something about Samara…and her weird creepy crawl.
I was living alone then…so that didn’t help a bit. I spend that weekend being jumpy every time the phone rang. Then there was the fear that Samara might crawl out of my TV (I know, hysterical!). The bravest thing was taking a shower ‘coz we all know that a woman in the shower is a standard cue for ghosts to make an appearance.
So it is no surprise that Samara is my all time favorite ghost. So here be my Samara inspired photo shoot…Njaay!

Bulletin broad

2007-05-23T14:30:00.000-04:00

The person who recommends Scarface is a sadistic bastard.

No new lovable side kicks and a medi-ogre plot made Shrek 3 a dull watch.

Impressive innovative fantasy creatures breathe life into an otherwise vacant Pan’s Labyrinth.

Garden state finds closures and new beginnings in a cute quirky way.

John Lasseter ran out of gas in Cars, the most under-whelming Pixar movie I have ever watched.

Released in January 2007 and already on DVD, Freedom writers is a too good to be true sort of movie about a teacher who forever changes the lives of her students (who are trapped in a world of gang wars and racism). The movie brushes cynicism aside and leaves you astounded (and running to the bookstore) when you learn that it is in fact based on “the freedom writers diaries” ….a true story.

The Gulf War memoirs of a jarhead tell a disheartening tale of a US marine… a true story.

Not guilty but charged

2007-05-15T14:49:00.000-04:00

(Taken at the alligator farm at St. Augustine by Crystal Blur. Date: 4/29/07)

A trip to the alligator farm

2007-05-01T16:58:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Maximo the saltwater crocodile.

If you see him headed your way in the wild, you are probably in for a bone crushing bite, exerting a pressure of up to 3000 psi (compared to 350 psi of shark bite)…ouch! But don’t worry, he will pose and grin widely for you to take photos if you visit him in the Alligator Farm . He was born in 1971 so that makes him about 35 years old (don’t know when his birthday is). He is 15 feet 3 inches long so get the wide angle lens ready if you want to take a photo. Here is a video of Maximo swimming around that I shot:

You probably figured out from his accent that he is Australian. For most of his life he lived in Australia and has been in two serious relationships. He met his current girlfriend ‘Sydney’ in…no not Sydney but Cairns. Here is a photo of Maximo and Sydney.

She weighs only 200 pounds compared to the scale breaking 1250 pound Maximo. The couple traveled all the way to America in 2003. It was a very stressful time for them with the air travel, culture shock, time difference and climate change. Poor Sydney was pregnant during this journey and could not handle the stress of all the traveling. It took a toll on Sydney and she decided against having the babies. She laid the eggs in the water (instead of land) which is as good as drowning the babies if the eggs are not removed from the water within 24 hours. However, in August 2005, Sydney was prepared to be a mom. She laid 35 eggs out of which 18 were ‘borrowed’ from her by the zoo keepers for safe keeping. From the 18 eggs, 8 were chosen to be male and 10 were chosen to be female. It is a simple trick, choosing an incubation temperature of 31.6 C for eggs results in males and a lower temperature (don’t know exact temp.) results in females. So Maximo is a proud dad of at least 18 kids who were born in August. I am not entirely sure about what happened to the eggs that were left with the couple.

But enough about Maximo…there is so much to see in the Alligator Farm. There is one exhibit called the alligator lagoon. It is very unnerving to watch some 50 alligators lounging no more than a couple of feet away from you. The only thing between you and the gators is a 3 feet tall fence. Irrational fears of gators climbing over each other to make an escape gripped me. I was amazed to discover how intelligent these creatures are. I guess being humans we grossly underestimate most of the creatures we share the planet with. How smart could they be if they can be easily poached to end up as fashion accessories? I know, Steve Irwin probably turned in his grave. I would watch Crocodile Hunter once in awhile and think Steve was crazy. I mean I appreciated his love for animals and his efforts he put to protect them but I could never call these creatures beautiful and amazing even after watching the honest admiration for them in Steve’s eyes. They were always these giant lizards that I’d rather not think about…let alone admire.

I stood there watching these gators and I realized how unnerving they really are in person. Then it was time for a show called “Realm of the Alligator” and this guy casually walked into the pit. There were gators all over the place and he was calmly giving us information about these creatures standing amongst them like they were rabbits. Here is a video I took:

You can hear the nervous spectators in the background. It was unbelievable that he was giving commands like they were dogs and they were following his commands. He called for Polly the croc, to come across the pit to him and only Polly did exactly that! It was amazing. I always thought that reptilian brains were too small to be trained like that.

All and all I left the alligator farm amazed, respecting these giant reptiles more than I ever did. If you ever get a chance to visit an alligator farm, you should definitely make some time for it. The St. Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida is particularly amazing (although that’s the only one I have visited). According to their pamphlet, it is the only zoo with all the 23 crocodilian species including the recently (1990s) discovered albino crocodiles.

I have uploaded many photos on my flickr account flickr account. I will upload more soon.

See you later alligator, in a while crocodile.

Battle of the bulge

2007-04-27T16:15:00.000-04:00

Battle of the slight case of bulge really. I have done the unthinkable…okay not unthinkable ‘coz I have thought about it alright…so the undoable. When the choice is between vegging out on a warm cozy couch and a sweaty painful workout it is not much of a choice. Couch always wins no contest. But lately with my low stress high fat diet I have packed on a few pounds and as a result have ended up with a slight case of bulge.

Day 1:

I went to the gym expecting to be mocked for my slight case of bulge. I prepared myself for the unforgiving stares from the Greek gods and goddesses in the gym. But instead, like they showed in a Friend’s episode, I was greeted by a cute Dan who gave me a tour of the gym. It was a pretty big gym with lots of machines with names such as butt buster. After the tour I decided to go for something simple like a run on the tread mill. After some feel good exercises, I left home feeling pretty darn good.

Day 2:

Somehow ended up in a kick boxing session…still haven’t figured out how I talked myself into it. So I was in one of those rooms with mirrors for walls. They are built such that you can view your problem areas in all possible angles. In addition I end up standing besides one of those perfectly athletic bodies (so that you can compare yours with theirs) on my right and a much older woman (to rub your nose in shame with their stamina) on my left.
The instructor yells, “Now do the boxer’s shuffle”.
I tried to do the shuffle with two left feet.
Me: Alright just don’t fall ‘coz nobody is going to miss it with the mirrors.
Instructor: Now punch and hook and kick.
I am making all the right moves but they turn out such that in comparison, a penguin’s waddle would look more graceful.
Instructor: Hook, punch, power-kick.
In Eric Cartman’s words, “you are breaking my balls here”.
But I will not quit! I will persevere to the end of this session…please let it be a 15 minutes session. Body refuses to co-operate 20 minutes into the session. I walked to the side while the rest of the class (including the much older participant) is just getting warmed up. WTF!
Alright this is embarrassing, I cannot be the quitter. I join in. Body now in full mutiny mode.
Brain: Alright! Let’s take it one kick at a time.
Legs: Not happening.
Brain: This is embarrassing.
Ten minutes later, Buck (my dearly beloved) caved in too. So now the two of us were in the time out corner. After two more failed attempts to join the group we decided to walk out. Buck somehow found the strength to do some more exercises while I hung around feeling as limp as a noodle. Fifteen minutes later I was on my way home thinking about the long battle ahead.

Day 3: Today. #@*!

Aria

2007-04-24T20:42:00.000-04:00

Aria has exactly 7 days, 6 hours, 43 minutes and 8 seconds to live. During this time she plans to do a number of things which would allow her to pass peacefully…possibly with no regrets. She felt grateful that life gave her the rare chance to say her final goodbye. She was one of the lucky ones to be aware of her impending death. What a shame it is when one volunteers to the drudgery of life to save for a future that never was. What a shame it is to end up as a road kill or with a bullet in the head for some pocket change or worse with the same hand-over obituary as millions of others had before you. It was too late for Aria to hope for a better obituary. Aria cursed herself whilst she was confronted by this thought. Not because she did not earn a better obituary but because she wondered about what others thought of her even in death? Was living a life fulfilling societal obligations not enough? But even with all the pandering to social cues, she would stick out like a sore thumb. Always the misfit, never the path breaker. She cringed as she envisioned those words on her tombstone. She checked out the paperwork to get cremated.

The news of her impending death was a hard pill to swallow but she did not have the heart or time to wallow in self pity. It was time to shed her inhibitions, her boundaries and her protective cocoon. She was a butterfly vibrant with color, having not more than a moment to spare on the thousands of alluring moments and memories that had bloomed in the spring of her life. A misfit metaphoric madam butterfly, making her last round in the garden of life…why was her mind cluttered with stupid metaphors? Not entirely stupid though. A superficial psychological analysis would point out that she identified with the butterfly because much like her the butterfly had a week to live. Aria looked at the butterfly and thought it was a pity that the poor bastard didn’t know it had a week to live. Look at it, fluttering away, wasting its life cross pollinating the flowers and making cocoons for the future generation that it will never see. Aria didn’t realize that butterflies were so depressing until that moment.

In her metaphorical struggle, Aria decided that she was going to be a metaphorical bullet from then on. The one who cuts to the chase to get one poignant point across. But even this metaphorical bullet was struggling to find the point of life. If life was a bullet, Aria had dodged it all her life.

She was too restless to watch the red ball of nuclear explosions climb up in the sky. But yet this brilliant time keeper had managed to create a spectacle she could not resist. Aria wondered how easily she dismissed the sunrises and sunsets as the most mundane of things. But they were the most mundane of things. For every missed sunrise there would be one more to come until the day she died.

Aria bit into the hottest pepper she could find in the market. Her eyes filled with tears even though she felt like a dry well inside. But the fiery jolt on her tongue gave her the gratification she sought. She yearned for the sadistic pleasure of being alive.

The Landlord video

2007-04-20T15:12:00.000-04:00

Will Ferrell does it again. Pearl rocks!

View it

here

or

here

Have a fantastic weekend :)

Chintu Pintu

2007-04-19T21:22:00.000-04:00

Hi,
My name is Chintu Pintu and I am a 2 months old puppy dog. The sidebar --> is my new home. Don't worry I won't bite you when you drop by Crys's website, unless ofcourse you put mean comments. You must think I am a genius of a puppy because I can already type a post. What do you expect? I am a cyber dog. I love to eat and play. So when you drop by don't forget to give me a treat or play with me or pet me.

-Chintu Pintu

Feasting eyeballs, hidden readers

2007-04-18T13:36:00.000-04:00

I was recently thinking about giving my blog a make over. The green paint has started peeling off the virtual walls. But after Patrix told me that he (like most avid blog readers) preferred to read my posts in the comfort of his cozy RSS reader rather than virtually traveling all the way to my grungy old blog, I realized that renovating my blog would be a pointless exercise. So I promptly enabled access to entire posts via RSS feed and began to ponder about the bloggeristic future.

Now that RSS feed is becoming the norm, is designing good looking web pages going to become a thing of the past? What about statistics on blog readership? How can the bloggers judge their blogs popularity? All technorati does is rank according to the number of referrals from other blogs and maybe page views (I am not certain) but those who are using RSS feed will not be counted by sitemeter or technorati…or will they?

I wonder if I will suffer from the empty blog syndrome ‘coz now I won’t be able to get so much as footprints of my readers in the form of sitemeter stats of number of visits and sorts. Even with a good readership following, I will still have the feeling of having a monologue with the virtual green walls. Are there ways in which I can get stats on these ghost readers? I should be entitled to get the stats on the RSS readers, after all I feed them. Or all I can do is sing…

Hello Hello Hello

Is there anybody out there?

Just click if you can read this.

Is there anyone home?

Come on, now.

I hear you’re reading posts.

If you know why I complain,

Click on the mouse again.

Relax.

I need some information first.

Just the basic stats

Can you identify yourself?

There are no stats and you are receding.

A distant ships smoke on the horizon.

You are only coming through in waves.

Your lips move but I cant hear what you’re sayin.

When I was a child I had a sitemeter.

My hands felt just like two balloons.

Now I got the stats once again.

The low visit numbers I do not understand.

This is not how I am.

I have become comfortably numb.

Ok.

Just a little mouse click. [ping]

Therell be no more --aaaaaahhhhh!

But you may feel a little sick.

Can you click again?

I do believe its working. good.

That’ll keep the stats going.

Look at the hit count grow.

There are no stats, you are receding.

A distant ships smoke on the horizon.

You are only coming through in waves.

Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,

Out of the corner of my eye.

I turned to look but it was gone.

I cannot put my finger on it now.

The child is grown, the stats are gone.

I have become comfortably numb.

Miracle 101

2007-04-16T14:45:00.000-04:00

The Vatican has started documenting ‘evidence’ to decree Pope John Paul II a saint. A candidate considered for sainthood is expected to have performed at least two miracles. The candidate may perform the miracles while s/he is alive or dead, although posthumous miracles earn brownie points because it proves that the candidate is in heaven and has close ties with God. Miracles performed posthumously by past successful candidates include lack of decomposition of their dead body. This one is a toughie to pull of because one has to posthumously convince all the flesh eating bacteria/insects/worms to abandon the idea of feasting on your ex-body. However, all hope for a miracle is not lost even if the candidate fails to stop the ex-body from decaying. Some candidates have scored miracles by making their decomposed remains smell like roses. Strangely enough those very candidates could cook up quite a stink with their farts when they were alive. God works in mysterious ways indeed.

Getting back to Pope John Paul II, he seems to have picked the old fashioned 'cure the sick' miracle for his application. Since the advent of Western medicine, miracles are hard to come by. But it is a dizzying victory when miracles heal where science has failed. Healings done posthumously are not only considered a bona fide miracle but are also regarded as a postcard from heaven.

“Hello mortals,
I am super happy to inform you that I have reached the Pearly Gates without any motion sickness. The security check was a pain in the ass...I beg your pardon rear end. But technically I do not have a butt anymore. Ahem! I digress. I have managed to successfully gain entrance into heaven. To expedite my sainthood application, I have put in a good word for Sister Blimey and Mr. Bullock.

Sincerely,
Artist formerly known as John Paul II.

P.S.: God says hi.”

Turns out Pope John Paul II has some awesome connections in heaven and his fast track sainthood processing is the envy of every green card applicant. Along with the latest American Idol results, CNN brings this miraculous story of posthumous miracles performed by the ex-pope.

The evidence gathered and handed over at the ceremony at Rome's Basilica of St John includes testimony from some 130 people as well as scrutiny of his life,spoken words and writings. [...] They include documentation on the case of Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, a 46-year-old French nun diagnosed with Parkinson's -- the same disease that the late pope had -- until she said it inexplicably disappeared two months after his death. Simon-Pierre, who worked as a maternity ward supervisor in Aix-En-Provence, could be central to the case since the Church demands proof of a medically unexplained healing before a candidate can be beatified. [...] "My healing was the work of God through the intercession of John Paul," she said.

Evidence for having performed at least 2 miracles to be decreed as saint is quite a tall order some might say. Was being celibate, feeding the poor, dedicating your life to alleviate human suffering not enough? But despair not…it is actually the easiest of the prerequisites to fulfill. As the savvy gecko would put it, "It is so easy, even a caveman could do it". Here is how it works…find somebody who has a disease that western medicine cannot cure yet. Next, convince the subject that you can cure him by acting as a medium of God BUT (and the but is very important in case of failures, so make sure you put the but in) patient must have unquestioning faith in God. If patient dies despite your blessings then you simply blame the patient or even the planets. Even the sky is not the limit here, you are only limited by your imagination. You can blame your patient for not having a pure heart, sinning too much to be saved by the blessing or it could all just be God’s plan. So no need to be too hard on yourself if your miracle is a total dud. Just pull something out of your ass and they would buy it…no questions asked. That’s the best part…the evidence lies in the eyes of the beholder and the lack of evidence lies in the eyes of sinners who will be admonished to hell. So yay! Then there are times when people bounce back to good health and nobody can explain what the fudge happened. This is the time to jump in and take all the credit. Tada! A miracle! Although resist all temptation to utter “Tada!” aloud after the miracle is performed or the miracle’s status will be down graded to a magic trick.

Now miracles can get you the title of being a saint but it is a title that will be bestowed upon you only after you are dead. I know, a true artist is never appreciated in their lifetime. Look at Jesus, the poor guy not only walked on water but even made wine from it. Still there were people going, “I don’t know, what else have you got?” But hope is never lost in the house of God. If you impress people with your miracle healings you will have a cult following in no time. You can have your own dominion where people will do all kinds of insane things for you. You get to play Simon says all your life and you are Simon!

If you are really good, you could even own a city.

Latin Idol

2007-04-12T18:26:00.000-04:00

This week on American Idol (AI): Latin week!
Fasten your seat belts, turn off the volume and resist your urge to pull out your hair. This is American idol.

Tanananananana oooohooooooooo tanananananana.

Keeping with the latin theme, our guest mentor this week is Hennifer Lopez
J. Lo : Ola everyone. Today I will teech you how to top the music chart with no singing talent whatsoever.
Sanjaya Malakar (yawn): Teach me something new.
J. Lo. : Let me hear you guys sing. You, what is your name?
Melinda : Melinda Dolittle.
J. Lo. : OMG I love Dr. Dolittle.
Melinda : Great.
J. Lo. : Go for it.
Melinda (sings melodiously): When marimba rhythms start to play...
J. Lo. : Woah woah woah! You’ve got it all wrong. You are focusing too much on the singing and not so much on the dancing.
Melinda : But I can’t dance.
J. Lo. : Really? Wow! You are one lucky chica to be in the top eight. Who is next?
Hayley (off key): Ooh bay…hay…hay…bee…heeeeeee.
J. Lo. : Hold it! I have one word for you. Cleavage. (Intense pause). It is a powerful thing. Let’s hear some boys sing.
Chris (sings in a boy band voice): Maaan it’s a hot one…
J. Lo. (exhales deeply): Have you learned nothing from Ricky Martin? This is Latin week people! Who can tell me what the main ingredient of a Latin song is?
Sanjaya : Duh! RAM
J. Lo. : That’s right Sanjaya. No wonder you are the crowd favorite. Without RAM or Rapid ass movement you are singing on thin ice. If all you do is sing then the ice will crack and down you go in the icy hole of anonymity.
Chris : What the hell is she talking about?
Haley : Ssssshhh
J. Lo. : You are arteests and the stage is your canvas. Si? When you sing you make a painting on the stage using your ass as a paintbrush. So you work on different strokes…the pendulum stroke, the mortar and pestle stroke…si?
Sanjaya (slaps J.Lo’s butt) : Baby can I have your number.
Contestants : Gasp!
J. Lo. : The one and only guy who gets what this is all about. Networking by getting phone numbers. Might I add the punk hairdo was genius! You guys can learn so much from Sanjaya. When you hear the name J. Lo., what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
Contestants : Grin awkwardly.
Sanjaya : Duh! Ass.
J. Lo. : That my friends is called branding. Sell yourself like a product. Study my video called I'm glad video before you take the stage this week.

Male contestants (watch with mouths hanging wide open) : I am so glad I watched that.
Female contestants take notes furiously.

On the AI live show:
The show opens with all the contestants performing a song together on the stage. Everybody is rubbing nipples, breathing heavily and humping everything in sight.

J. Lo. (Eyes tearing up) : Oh I am so proud that AI is serving as a platform for representing my culture and heritage. My job is done.
Seacrest : It is hot hot hot tonight ladies and gentlemen. And now for the individual performances. Take it away Haley.
Haley (in shorty shorts): Screeeeeech
Randy : Yo! So check this out. You were pimpin' the song too much ho…I mean yo!
Paula : Hic
Simon : Hideous performance, sexy legs.
Seacrest (turning green): I am standing right here! Next up LaKisha Jones .

The set tremors on a scale of 2 on the Richter scale.

Audience : Wow dramatic entrance! Great special effects.
Special effects guy : What special effects?
LaKisha (wearing a red dress 3 sizes too small): Ooooohhhhh
Fat oozing from dress and jiggling.
Audience (shielding their eyes): It hurts! It hurts!
Randy: Woah! Yo! Doh! No no no!
Paula: Hic!
Simon: Jello’s marketing department called, they want you to be their mascot.

Blake : Beep-bop-beepity-bopity-boo
Audience: Boohoo

Sanjaya : Makes sweet love to the camera in Spanish.
Simon : You raised your performance tonight just like the hair on my hairy chest. That was genius.
Seacrest (changes shades of green and red) : You make me sick.

Vote for the worst and Howard Stern camp : What the fuck is going on? I don’t know who we are voting for anymore.
Producers of AI: The ratings just get better and better! J. Lo. was a great idea. Is Paris Hilton available for the next show?

Crucifixion of Reason

2007-04-11T18:42:00.000-04:00

I felt a chill go down my spine when I watched this video of a man volunteering himself to crucifixion every year. It is fanatical passion like this that scares me. It is unquestioning faith like his that threatens me to the core. This man has abandoned reason. He knows that his wife and daughter survived a life threatening event because of Christ's blessings. In return this man volunteers himself for crucifixion every year. He probably lives by the bible. Science could and has falsified the very foundation of the bible (and probably every other religious text) but there is no scientific evidence that you could offer this man to make him question his faith in God. Such is the impenetrable armor of faith.

He will be the sheep and follow his Lord. His body is an instrument for God's work and God will speak to him through ~~dreams~~ visions. God will send him signs to find his way to heaven. God will guide him to his mission of spreading the word of the bible, fighting the devil disguised as reason. This mortal human is one of the millions of humble servants of the dictator in high heavens. His master wants his servant to pay the debt with blood and flesh. And pay he will. Self mutilation washes away his sins. Self flagellation disciplines his body. Pain curbs his sinful urges.

God has decreed this warrior to restore God's dominion on earth. A righteous war is inevitable. Jihad! Jihad! Slaughter the sinners who do not obey the word of the Lord. The Gods are thirsty for blood. Sacrifice a goat, or a virgin or some heathen. A holy war to cleanse the unholy soul. Open your unquestioning hearts and minds to be blessed by the Lord. Bow and dissolve your ego. Beg and grovel to him. Appease him or face his fury.

For in God you trust and in ignorance you find bliss.

Chapter 8: The Devil wears Gocci

2007-04-08T18:30:00.002-04:00

Vyasa (V): Like most girls recovering from heartbreak, Devyani decided to focus on socializing instead of brooding at home. One such warm summer afternoon, Devyani was hanging out with princess Sarmishta and her group of friends. After a game of hide-and-seek, the girls decided to cool off by taking a communal bath. Glistening in their sweat, the succulently developed women stripped off their clothes and ran in slow motion towards the calm, soothing water of the river.

Ganapati and Vyasa are lost in image for a minute.

Ganapati (G): *cough* *cough*

V (sheepish grin): Ahem…where were we? Ah, yes. Moving on.

G lowers trunk and resumes writing

V: While the women soaked in the cool water, a swift summer breeze blew by the river and shuffled the clothes lying by the river bank. The women giggled and frolicked in the water to their hearts’ content, and then decided to make their way home. The clothes were sorted out and the bathing beauties covered their assets. Princess Sarmishta noticed that her new designer dress by Gocci was missing.

Sarmishta (S): I am going to be so mad if I find as much as one stitch messed up
Friend 1 (F1): But who could possibly steal it?
Devyani (D) (walks by wearing the Gocci outfit): Ready to leave girls?
S (Gasp!): What the fuck? That’s my dress, bitch!
D (pretends to look astonished): Oh! I must’ve confused my dress with yours.
S: Confused my Gocci dress with your Valmiki-mart rags? Yeah, I would believe that…if you were blind and retarded.
D (in tears): You don’t have to be so mean! You can have your dress back.
S: I am being mean? First, you steal my dress. Then you lie about being confused. I did you a favor by letting you hang out with us A-list socialites and you were the one back-stabbing. Give me my dress back before you ruin it, you filthy low-life fat-ass bitch.
D: Did you just call me fat?
S: No. That would be filthy low-life fat-ass bitch.
D: That’s it!

Devyani lunges on to the princess and goes straight for her hair

G (excited): Catfight!
V: The princess tries to fight back, and in the tackle, there is a distinctive sound of cloth ripping, that is heard across the forest.

S: That better not be my Gocci tearing!

Sure enough, a big gaping hole had made its debut on the otherwise pristine dress.

S: That’s it! You’re going down…the well.
Everyone: Gasp!
D: No. Please. This is all a big mistake. My dad can bring dead people back to life. I am sure he could fix your dress.
S: Clearly you know nothing about fashion if you think your dad can fix a Gocci. Girls, shall we?

The princess and her friends pulled Devyani near a dry well and dumped her into it. Devyani pleaded and cried, but the girls walked back to the palace without her. Devyani whimpered in the dark well all alone, waiting for her dad to find her.

S: We in Vrishaparva take fashion crime seriously, and honey when she put that Gocci on, she asked for trouble. Let that be a lesson for anyone who even thinks to put a scratch on my Gocci. Hell hath no fury like a woman with her Gocci torn
Friend 2 (F2): Yeah, you showed her.

V: Why Ganapati, you are awfully quiet today.
G: Hot naked chicks bathing in the river, catfights…it’s all good. No complaints.
V: Huh! Who knew? Anyway, let’s continue with the story.

Meanwhile in the dry well.

D: It is dark, cold and lonely here…I am beginning to feel claustrophobic…Is that a spider? Aaaaargh!!

Devyani’s shriek reverberated in the forest. As luck would have it, a handsome youth was wandering around in the forest.

Handsome Youth (HY): Why, that sounds like a damsel in distress. Hello! Is somebody there?
D (hoping it is some handsome prince): Help!

The youth follows Devyani’s voice to the well.

D: Thank God! Please rescue me from this death hole.

The youth bends over flexing his taut muscles, and pulls out Devyani from the well. Devyani is struck by the youth’s surfboard abs and charming dimpled smile.

D (clutching the youth’s muscular arms): Oh my, looks like somebody has been working out.
HY: It is getting dark. You should be heading home.

It could be the proximity to the river, or the youth’s charismatic presence, but blinded by infatuation, Devyani proposes to the youth.

G: About time somebody proposed by the river.
V: Unfortunately for Devyani, she had uttered the words that would send any commitment-phobic guy scampering like a scared mouse.

HY: Er…I am not sure. We just met. I hardly know you.
D: Well, that can be fixed. You can know me all you want. The night is still young and so are we.
HY: Look, I am a kshatriya and you are a brahmin girl. Even if our horoscopes match, society would never accept our union. I am sorry, but no can do.
D: I can’t believe you are saying no. It’s my ass, isn’t it?
HY: There’s nothing wrong with your ass…I mean…not that I was looking…I mean…with you…I mean…I have to go now. Bye

The youth scampered away like a terrified mouse. Miffed, heartbroken, and lonely, Devyani made her way home, determined to take her revenge on the princess.

(…to be continued)

Crispy wafers with Crys

2007-04-05T13:52:00.000-04:00

In light of Crystal Blur’s predictable failure for nomination in Indibloggies , the ego deflation wasn’t enough. So one decided to interview Crys to needle her with poignant questions. A hideous attempt to mock Crys by putting her under a microscope in her darkest hour. Styled after a recent post of self-proclaimed bimbette of desi blogosphere Megha, here’s Crispy wafers with Crys. In conversation with Crys.

A dingy multicolored basement which should be manned with a biohazard level 3 sign. The interviewer Crys is wearing a tube top and a skimpy skirt to cater to the male audience. One florescent light flickers ominously as the interviewee Crys stumbles into the basement wearing a polka dotted dress where each polka dot is the diameter of 28mm.

This part of the program was not sponsored.

Crys: Good morning Crys!
Crys: (Yawn) Where are the wafers?
Crys: Um…sorry the crew got hungry.
Crys: What crew? It is just you and me.
Crys: Will tic-tacs work?
Crys: You got me out of bed at 10 o-fucking clock and you don’t even have wafers? On top of that you accuse me of having bad breath by offering me mints? I may be many things but carrier of bad breath I am not!
Crys: Wow! Missed the morning coffee eh? I didn’t accuse you of anything Crys. How about we start over?
Crys: Hmph!
Crys: Okaaay…I am sorry. Now will you cheer up?
Crys: Double hmph! (Hands folded across the chest. Foot tapping.)
Crys: How about we walk down to the Krispy Kreme and I buy you a donut?
Crys: I knew you would come around. Krispy Kreme with Crys? That works.
Both head to the Krispy Kreme a block away.

This part of the program was sponsored by Krispy Kreme…I wish.

Crys: How does it feel to not even get a nomination for Indibloggies? Do you feel hurt, rejected, suicidal, all of the above?
Crys: Huh? Actually none of those…it doesn’t bother me.
Crys: I see you are in the denial phase right now.
Crys: No…I am okay really. You see I am a method blogger like Aamir Khan. Ofcourse I wouldn’t grow a method mustache if I wrote a blog about …well men with mustaches. But just like Aamir doesn’t care for Filmfare, I don’t care for Indibloggies.It is as simple as that.
Crys: In all fairness to Aamir, he was nominated for Filmfare awards.
Crys: Minor difference in perception.Van Gogh didn’t sell a painting in his life. Does that mean he wasn’t a great artist?
Crys: So now you are Van Gogh?
Crys: No I am not saying that. I am saying popularity has nothing to do with artistic talent as clearly demonstrated by American Idol.
Crys: Did you just compare Great Bong with Sanjaya Malakar ? (Gasp!)
Crys: Jesus Cryst! Why are you putting words in my mouth? I did not say that. Great Bong is great. In fact I admire how he maintains the quality and quantity of his blog posts. It is quite amazing really.
Crys: So you are saying that Great Bong is really a pseudonym for more than 1 person because one person could not possibly write so frequently without losing quality of the blog?
Crys: No! That is not what I meant. Why are you making stuff up?
Crys: Relax…you are doing just fine. Trust me, I know what the readers want. You won’t be putting your proverbial foot in your mouth in this interview. We will be using the old media trick of putting question marks at the end of all the blatantly speculative statements. So it would read, “Great Bong, a man with multiple personas or multiple persons posing as one man?”
Crys (pouting): I thought this interview is about me.
Crys: So what should your readers expect from your blog?
Crys: Well I am always bubbling with ideas. Dabbling in different subjects. I am still not ready to commit to any one topic and make it my niche. That is sort of the advantage of being at the bottom of the ladder…the only way to go is up.
Crys jots down: Crys says what goes up must comes down. All popular bloggers headed for failure?
Crys: Oh here we are. I am starving. Original glazed puhleese.
Crys: I will have one too.
Crys: Great.
Crys: Er…can you pay for this? I am a little low on cash.
Crys: You said it was your treat?
Crys: It is…I will pay you back later. What you don’t trust me?
Crys: Oh alright.

Just like chrysanthemum flowers, Crys and Crys bloomed with joy as they sunk their respective teeth in a heavenly bite of original glazed Krispy Kreme donut.

Boondocks

2007-04-04T16:41:00.000-04:00

I was rummaging around in the anime section of Blockbuster hoping to find something worth watching after Barefoot Gen and unbelievably I struck gold. I picked out the first disc of the one and only season of Boondocks. I had never heard about the show. But the cover was intriguing. A black kid’s face stared intently from the cover. I had never come across an entirely black character cast in animation so that alone intrigued me. The episode descriptions looked pretty funny too. So I checked it out.

I was blown out of my mind by Boondocks. It is a bold satire that manages to hit a nerve with the political and black cultural issues. The humor is refreshing. I was even more amazed to find out how young the author Aaron McGruder was when he started writing the comic strip on which this animation is based.

I can’t wait for season 2 which will be released this June. You can check out the awesomely designed website for Boondocks or catch an episode on Cartoon network Adult swim .

Here is a clip from one of the episodes. Enjoy.
Warning: Strong language.

Back into the spamming hole

2007-04-02T16:29:00.000-04:00

I am very careful about venturing into unknown websites on the internet after being burned twice…well thrice if you count yesterday. The first time I was suckered, I thought I would never get suckered again. This happened several years ago when I didn’t know better than clicking on pop ups. (Snicker all you want but this story needs to be told to save some unsuspecting trigger happy soon to be victim). On that fateful day I was happily browsing Calvin and Hobbes and suddenly a pop-up popped out of no where and told me that I was the 100,000th visitor and I had won some fabulous prize. With some twisted logic I decided that since it was a pop-up on Watterson’s site it couldn’t be horribly bad to check out the prize. Who doesn’t want to be a winner and who doesn’t like to get free stuff? What could possibly go wrong as long as I don’t volunteer my real name or social security number or bank account number? One click on the pop-up transported me to a website which had a simple form which asked for my email id to mail me the coupon or something. So I filled in my non-work id. Next? Then the form started getting pushy and asked me to fill in some sensitive information and I called it quits. I was disappointed that I was not going to get a prize after all but at least I wasn’t going to be an identity theft victim. At least it was over. WRONG! After that day it has been 3 years and I get unbelievable amount of spam on that email even after the spam filters block out whatever they can detect as spam. I can’t tell you how many versions of the Nigerian lottery scam email I have received.

The second time I got royally screwed on the internet was when I was searching for some song lyrics. This was the nastiest incident. I literally walked into a worm hole. I googled for the lyrics and clicked on one website and before I knew it my computer screen was splattered with pop-ups. Yes I had a pop-up blocker on and that didn’t help. Anyhow, I tried to close the pop-ups and that was a bigger mistake than opening that website. After that I had no control over my computer. It was possessed and beyond any human control. It was impossible to get on the internet because the ghost in my machine would take over and transform my computer screen into a bulletin board for online poker and naked chicks. I had to put my computer in rehab for almost a week to get it back to normal. No more unprotected activities for my computer since then.

All was well with me and my computer until yesterday. I wanted to conduct a poll on my website so I googled ‘free poll’. I picked one of the search results and was pretty impressed by the site. This site looked very professionally done and there was not a single ad in sight. So I started with registration. The website asked me to create a login with email id and create a password. Regular procedure so did that. Then it send an email to the id I had provided and asked me to do the confirmation procedure by logging on to my email, clicking on the link they sent and thus confirming the account. Did that. Then they asked me to set up the poll. Smooth sailing so far. Then enter the website where this poll will be published. Done. Then a link was generated and I needed to paste it on my website. There was also a warning that if I changed this link then my account will be deleted. So I paste this link in my post on my website and look at the preview. The m**f**ing link was for an online poker website! I realized I had just volunteered another email id to be on some list for endless spam!
Please do not register on http://www.easy-poll.com/ . You will end up on some spam list.

I was also left wondering if there were ways to test the authenticity of a website before engaging with the registration procedure. I know how to figure out if a website I already use like say a bank website or paypal is not authentic. I want to know how I can determine whether a website that I have never encountered before is reliable. If you have any tips on this issue then please share them with me.

Dog's best friend

2007-04-01T16:31:00.000-04:00

A recent article in BBC* reported that stray dogs killed a 3 year old boy in Bangalore. Since then the Indian municipality has taken action by slaughtering dogs. There have been several debates about handling this issue until last week CPCSEA (Committee for the Purpose of Cruelty and Supervision of Experiments of Animals) announced that they are proposing a new alternative solution to deal with strays. CPCSEA have put forth a proposal to stop the strays from breeding and thus control the stray population on the road. Neutering the dogs has been an old practice but the CPCSEA deems neutering inhumane too. They are promoting use of dog condoms.

Although dog condoms have been effectively used in the United States recent product recalls** have been a big blow to the dog condom industry. CPCSEA remains confident that their solution will be effective in humanely controlling the stray population. CPCSEA is planning to put up an online petition for usage of dog condoms by the muncipality.

* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6407983.stm
** http://dogcondoms.com/

The Sanjaya Malakar conspiracy

2007-03-29T14:56:00.000-04:00

(The views and opinions expressed on this website are solely those of the author. This is spoof and only a spoof. People without a sense of humor may experience rage and a strong urge to leave nasty comments. Reader discretion advised.)

The story so far.
Sanjaya Malakar is an American Idol (AI) contestant who sings as badly as Cacofonix in Asterix comics. You can sample his off-key butchering of the song “you really got me” here . But that has not stopped him from being in the top 11 of this season's AI. Don’t give a damn yet? Me neither. But apparently there were a few arguments about the intentions of Sanjaya's supporters. Fight fight fight! (Popcorn kaha hai bhayya?).
O3 takes the stage.
O3: Yakshimas. My name is O3 son of O2 and O1. My hobby is to play kabbadi and fight injustice. You say vavaviva! I say that right. I am onto you desi conspiracy. I know your mentality. You vote for Sanjaya to have a sexy time on idol. It not nice. You Indians is racist. You judge base on color and not what is talent. You are big hippo-crit. I am going to vote for Sanjaya—NOT!
Desi readers: Who is this Sanjaya yaar?
Uberdesi steps onto the podium: Bhailog aur unki behenlog (wink), don’t listen to the self hater O3. O3 does not know what he is talking about. He is making up shit and for that I am going to make him eat his own words (hence make him eat shit). You see unlike O3 I have done my research and found that statistically it is impossible for desis alone to save Sanjaya.
Dazzles readers with fancy diagrams.
Uberdesi: Thus after a thorough research I conclude that the American teenagers are the culprits. For those of you who are still not convinced (although I don’t know how that is possible), I have started my own poll to further validate what has already been validated by me. Behold! The milk and water are about to be separated.
Reader 1: But how do we know this poll is not rigged like the American idol poll?
Uberdesi: Spoken like a true self-hater. I have hard core data and I shall not be proved wrong until I prove me wrong.
Desipundit steps in with a banner: “This fight was sponsored by Desipundit”
Desipundit: This programming will continue after a few words from our expert on racism. Take it away Patrix .
Patrix: What?
Desipundit: Just a few words will do.
Patrix: India to haar gaya. Ab Tendulkar, Agarkar, Malakar kuch nahi kar saktey. India lost the world cup. Who gives a F*** about Idol? Everybody knows that reality TV has nothing to do with reality. BTW there is an all-american site promoting Malakar. Here is a link . Now leave me alone.
Americans: WTF is going on? Sanjaya is still in the race? This is turning into the presidential election. First Bush now Sanjaya! What is America coming to?
Howard Stern the misogynist: You bitches make me laugh. You actually think that you have a say in the AI results? I am the Mogul of the media. This is my domain and I have commanded my faithful followers to lead Sanjaya to victory. In doing so, I will prove that I have the biggest penis in the media industry and I can fuck whoever I want, whenever I want and wherever I want.

Meanwhile at AI...
Sanjaya: Croak croak croak
Simon Cowell : Ryan you are gay.
Ryan Seacrest : You want me to be gay.
Paula Abdul : I believe in you Sanjaya. I believe in your talent. I believe in your voice. In fact I believe I am going to have another drink (hic!).
Token black judge, Randy Jackson : Yo yo! Check this out yo! I really think you can do it yo! But I didn’t feel you tonight dawg! I want to feel you. I want to feel you under my skin. You got to give it to me…you know what I am sayin? Yo yo!
Ryan Seacrest: Just for the record I am not gay!
Keith Olbermann : It has been n+1 days (where n is a ridiculously large number) since the declaration of mission accomplished in Iraq and here are the results of last nights America idol. I am only doing this because my producers are holding me at gunpoint.

Oh the drama!!!

Happy Monday

2007-03-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

To boost your creative juices during mundane Monday morning meetings.

Send in the entries via comments or telepathic messages. Winning entry will be inked into the photo.

Winner gets bragging rights. To claim the cash prize contact Another brick in the wall

The winner is @m@r

Movie review: Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen)

2007-03-22T20:40:00.001-04:00

This is the anime that inspired Grave of fireflies (at least according to Wikipedia) though unlike Grave of fireflies, this movie ends on an optimistic note. This movie is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.

The movie is loosely based on author Nakazawa’s memoirs of the war. Nakazawa is a Hiroshima bombing survivor and was in the elementary school first grade when Hiroshima was bombed. He expresses his experience of the war through the main character of the movie, Gen.

In the movie, Gen survives the Hiroshima bombing and is left to deal with the aftermath. Gen struggles to survive and keep his spirit uncrushed while he is surrounded by the harrowing reality of war. After watching the gruesome movies of recent times with fountains of blood spurting from freshly cut jugulars and ruthless mind numbing violence this movie manages to crumble you with a child’s despaired cry.

The movie conveys the tragedy of the bombings in a profound manner. I was moved to tears. I let the pain I felt pickle in my mind instead of running away from it. I wonder if the warmongers would support violence so vehemently if they could have a first person experience of the aftermath.

I highly recommend this genius of a movie.

Also read an interview with Nakazawa

Ugh!

2007-03-19T13:11:00.000-04:00

Dilbert's author's BS 'BS radar'

Gravity of the situation hypothetically speaking

2007-03-16T18:03:00.001-04:00

Last night I wondered as I always do about what earth would be like if the earth's core cools down? How would the cooling of magma affect life on earth? Would several if not all the species on earth get wiped out? Is it another doomsday scenario? If it is a doomsday scenario where is the movie on it? Turns out there is some movie called 'The Core' which is based on reversal of earth’s magnetic poles. Reversal? They can reverse?!? So I dug up an article on geomagnetic reversal which said that every 200,000 years or so the earth’s magnetic poles switch (Me: WTF?) although the last time it flipped was some 780,000 years ago. So it’s due in a “not in our lifetime” sort of near-distant future (nobody knows when exactly). But the scientists assure us that it’s not a big deal since humanity has survived the last reversal (as Borat would put it, that’s a relief…not!). Every time I discover a novel concept, writer, musician or artist and I get excited to share it with my friends I am greeted with, “yeah I already knew that”. Well why didn’t you ever mention it before then smartass? Party poopers!

But anyway, I will focus on the question I started with or it will turn into a 100 different tangents far from where we began like my thesis project. Since my knowledge of physics and geology is rudimentary at best, I asked a couple of enlightened souls to speculate. The speculation began with both my sources agreeing on one of the consequences being that the magnetic poles would cease to exist. In other words there would be no North Pole or South Pole magnetically speaking. So I began to wonder how that would impact life on earth. Being a biologist, the first thing that popped into my head was that the migratory birds would get screwed. Sinister possibilities like earth radiated and fried by cosmic rays did not pass my mind. I was busy thinking about life without working compasses and GPS based navigation system. I was still deducing the perils of living in a magnet-less society while my non-biologist sources had moved onto questions like would earth’s gravity be the same?

So no poles, what about gravity? What would be the impact of magma cooling on earth’s gravity? For occurrence of change in earth’s gravity, there has to be a change in mass because mass and gravity are somehow related (don’t ask me how but if you know how do tell).

When the magma cools there may be changes in its density. Which means that when the magma was in its hot liquid form, the molecules had more space to be in but as it cools and solidifies there are more molecules in lesser space (or less molecules in more space like ice?) hence the change in density (no. of molecules in a defined space). Phew!

So an important factor determining the density of the magma would be volume and there would be two scenarios available for the magma:
(1) Solid crust scenario: the earth’s crust is rigid enough to keep the volume available for magma expansion/condensation a constant.
(2) Elastic crust scenario: the magma will not be restricted by earth’s crust during the cooling process which means volume is not a constant.

We were not completely sure about which of these two scenarios are more likely to occur so we explored both.

The debate in the solid crust scenario was whether there would be a change in a mass (and therefore gravity) of the earth when the volume is a constant.
Caution: Equation ahead.
To address the possibility of a change in mass of the magma, the following equation comes in handy,
Density =Mass/Volume
Wow! I didn’t think I would ever need to refer to that equation after I graduated but here we are.
So, if the volume remains constant due to the earth’s restrictive crust and the density of the magma changes due to the cooling process, would the mass have to change to satisfy the equation? Would that change gravity? Does that equation even apply here? Even though the equation suggests there will be a change in mass, where is this change in mass of the earth coming from. In other words, we had ‘X’ amount of magma and ‘Y’ amount of crust, mantle and other stuff the earth is made of. After cooling we still have the same amount of mass. Unless now I will be directed to some complicated thermodynamics equation where the energy transfer needs to be factored in or some such jazz I will continue assuming thermodynamics will not be crashing this party.

Okay. So to continue on the “mass should not change” line of thought, one of the sources proposed a thought experiment. Imagine there is a closed glass container which is half filled with liquid. The glass does not expand/contract by the temperature of the liquid and it is suspended in nothingness like earth. While this analogy of a glass that does not expand or contract was being constructed to better understand the impact of magma cooling on earth’s mass, I went back to a memory of a physics class in school. The biggest turn off for me in physics was that the lessons started with some arbitrary assumptions for no apparent reason. It would begin with sentences like, ‘imagine a weightless, frictionless piston’. I would never get past this ‘imagine weightless frictionless piston’ line. First of all there is no such thing and secondly why are we imagining this imaginary piston? But before I could get past that thought the teacher would have moved on to some complex sleep inducing equation derivation which would comatose my interest completely. But here I was imagining imaginary glasses that don’t expand or contract according to the liquid in them. Anyhow, getting back to the magma story, the glass container would restrict the volume and the liquid would change density as it cools but the mass would remain the same (the closed container avoids loss of liquid by evaporation and there is no condensation on the exterior of the glass container as it is suspended in vacuum). But what about the air in the empty part of the glass or is that irrelevant? Sources had to get back to work so will ponder on this with me tomorrow.

Moving on to elastic crust scenario, the crust accommodates for the changes in volume as magma condenses. So the earth will end up shrinking (or expanding?) and this would result in a change in volume but not in mass. But there would be a change in the center of gravity perhaps? At this point one source wandered out trying to figure out how gravity is calculated. The remaining source concluded that we would no longer be walking perpendicular to the surface but rather at an angle…matrix style. Back problems anyone? Needless to say Kamasutra will be updated. The discussions about the disappearance of earth’s electromagnetic shield resulting in increased cosmic radiation, ozone depletion and such were left for another day as I wandered off imagining the various amusing sexual positions possible.

On a side note: I hope that this biologist’s venture into a physicist’s domain will be a frictionless ordeal.

Ba-bull (Rated F for frustrating)

2007-03-12T22:41:00.001-04:00

Curse you “Academy of motion pictures” for recommending this movie to me. I should’ve looked at the reviews on rottentomatoes.com to temper my expectations before renting out this movie. I write this review to warn readers and lower their expectations if they ever decide to watch Babel. For those of you who have already suffered through it I am sorry I couldn’t get this review to you any earlier.

First of all stop making movies that don’t have story lines that go in a chronological order. Memento was awesome but after that it just got annoying. In addition to the chronological distortion this movie follows 3 stories. My suggestion here is, pick one story…preferably the one with Brad Pitt and explore it instead of bombarding the audience with bits from 3 stories like water drops of a Chinese torture tactic. I followed the catastrophic developments in the movie only to be left with questions like what did the Japanese girl write in the note she gave to the cop? Did the cop that got shot by the kid in Morocco survive? Why did I rent out this movie?

Sparks of profundity gets lost in unnecessary images of Cate Blanchett peeing and incoherent time travel. But the most disappointing thing of all was that not once did Brad Pitt remove his shirt. I mean come on! They are trapped in the middle of the desert with no air-conditioning. It is only natural that Brad Pitt goes topless. If not the desert heat then the desperation of the character would make him rip his shirt in frustration. I don’t know what the writers were thinking. I mean here was an opportunity to explore Brad Pitt’s abs…er character and they abandon that only to explore some Asian school girl fantasy. Bunch of perverts! And then they want us to buy that a pussy flashing school girl can’t find a horny teenager to have sex with? The script is totally unrealistic. I give it two thumbs, two middle fingers and six toes down.

Chapter 7: The Return of the Living Dead

2007-03-07T10:22:00.002-05:00

Vyasa walks into his cottage and finds Ganapati busting a move oblivious to Vyasa.
Ganapati (G): I have a big trunk and I cannot lie, you other brothers can't deny...
Vyasa (V): Still up to your old antics.
G grins: Hee hee...you caught me there. So are we going to kick some Rakshas butt today?
V: Will we ever! Ready?
G: You know I am.
V: (blank)
Crickets chirping.
G: Anytime today.
V: Alright alright. I see it in my head now. It is all coming together. This will be a story about the eternal struggle between good and evil. It will be a super action dhamaka thriller.
G (throwing punches in the air with his trunk): Action dhamaka! My favorite.
V: All the key elements for a super duper hit will come together. There will be romance, murder, magic and possibly incest.
G: Woah! Incest?!
V: I am an artist ahead of my time G.

G: All I have to say is that Vanar Sena will be pissed. If you publish this they will burn down all the papyrus stores. It is not worth it.
V: Yeah the Vanar Sena. I feel like I am living on a planet of apes.
G: Good movie though.
V: What?
G: Oh it hasn't been made yet.
V: Okaaay! So back to the story. The war between Devas and Asuras had taken a toll on the Devas. Although the carnage was gruesome in both camps, Asuras possessed a weapon that made it impossible for the Devas to get an upper hand. The Asuras had Sukracharya who had obtained a PhD in Sanjivaniology.
G: Sanjivaniology?
V: I just made that word up...pretty cool huh. And with the knowledge of Sanjivaniology, Sukracharya could get people back from the dead. So the Asuras were immortal as long as Sukracharya was with them.
G: So the Devas send an assassin to kill Sukracharya?
V: Even better. The Devas send a handsome beau to woo Sukracharya's daughter Devyani in the hopes of learning Sukracharya's secret. The brave young fellow who takes up this task is called Kacha. G what are you scribbling?
G: I was making a pronunciation key for Kacha so that people don't confuse it with Kacha as in raw?
V: Oh okay. Sukracharya accepts Kacha as a graduate student and as all graduate students do, Kacha ends up running errands for his advisor for the next few years. In a couple of dance sequences Devyani falls in love with Kacha's charming ways. Meanwhile the Asuras get suspicious of Kacha's intentions and decide to take matters in their own hands. The Asuras set out to murder Kacha. On a crisp misty morning when Kacha was out in the fields where Sukracharya's cattle grazed on grass, the Asuras slit Kacha's throat, then skinned him and chopped the body into bite size pieces and then fed those bite sized pieces to the dogs.
G: Good God Vyasa!
V: They are Asuras. You have to make the audience hate them. Besides violence in media is totally acceptable but God forbid you show them a nipple.
G: Hee hee.
V: Anyway so the dogs eat all of Kacha's body. Devyani waits all day for Kacha's return. At nightfall she finally breaks down and pleads with her father to go looking for Kacha. The Asuras cannot keep secrets well and Sukracharya figures out that Kacha is dead. So Sukracharya performs rituals and brings Kacha back from the dead. The Asuras are disappointed with Sukracharya's success and decide to kill Kacha again and dispose of his body in some other way. This time they pound Kacha's body into pulp and then grind it into a paste and dump it in the ocean.
G: I think I am going to be sick.
V: But Sukracharya is so far advanced in Sanjivaniology that he manages to bring Kacha back to life. The Asuras come up with a bolder plan.
G: Third time's a charm I hope to God.
V: This time the Asuras burn Kacha's body to ashes and then mix it in wine which they then serve Sukracharya.
G: This is really sick.
V: Sssh don't break my flow of thought. Devyani pleads with her dad again after she realizes that Kacha is dead and her dad relents to his daughter's incessant pleading. When Sukracharya starts performing the rituals his stomach starts expanding and soon he realizes that Kacha is trapped inside his stomach. At this point Sukracharya tells Devyani that he might have to pay with his life to bring Kacha back from the dead. Devyani cries inconsolably and tells her dad that she could not bear to live without either of them.
G: Wait a minute so when the Asuras feed Kacha's dead body to the dogs what happens to the dogs?
V: Yeah the dogs don't make it.
G (whimpers): The dogs die?
V: Well okay they don't, Sukracharya gets them back to life. Happy?
G: I just don't like doggies dying.
V: Moving on. So now the only way for both Kacha and Sukracharya to survive is teach Kacha Sanjivaniology.
G: Why doesn’t he pass on his secret to Devyani instead?
V: Duh! Devyani is a woman.
G: That is so sexist.
V: Hey I don't make the rules. That’s how society works. So back to the story… Sukracharya shares his guarded secret with Kacha and Kacha then tears open Sukracharya's stomach and crawls out of it surrounded by fountains of blood sprouting every which way from Sukracharya’s body. Kacha now drenched in a blood bath, lies on the ground besides Sukracharya's limp body which resembles a road kill with guts spilled out. Awesomely gruesome!
G: Yeah I don't think I am going to eat dinner tonight.
V: Then Kacha does his first Sanjivaniology experiment and passes with flying colors. It's what we researchers call beginner's luck and needless to say Sukracharya was one lucky bastard. Asuras run out of ideas and stop their murderous ploys. Finally it is graduation day for Kacha and Devyani decides to ask Kacha to marry her. Devyani is horrified to hear Kacha say that technically she is like a sister to him because he was reborn from her father's stomach. So he can't possible marry her because every time they would have sex it would be incest and incest is morally wrong.
G: What no incest?
V: Yeah I figured I had enough violence in the story to appall people. Instigating Vanar Sena will be overkill.
G: Okay I am off now. Your stories are getting too gruesome for my taste.

The Contract (Part 4)

2006-10-29T14:08:00.000-05:00

Update: For those of you who are wondering about the previous parts to this series, please check the September archives. Will post links to those parts in this post at a later time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Krish sat in front of the camcorder. The camera prepared to capture a slice of reality. The digital screen filled with a blanket of smoke. The smoke cleared to reveal Krish’s face with a vacant expression. He peered into the camera blowing another puff of smoke.

He began talking into the camera.

“If you are watching this I am probably dead. I have been thinking about death a lot lately. It is strange how you end up thinking about life really when you think about death. The things that happened and more so the things that didn’t happen. Like that trip you meant to take or the words that never escaped your mouth or the goodbye you never got to say. I thought about all the people that were close to me and I lost…forever. I realized there was so much I did not know about them and they did not know about me. It was like they lived another life that I never knew about and desperately wished to be a part of. But now they were lost forever. How can they not exist?

So I got thinking about this. I thought how about I make a video diary and leave a piece of me behind. If ever anyone wondered what I was like they could pop this in and there I am. Videos are really like time machines if you think about it. Although you can only go back in time it is a pretty darn good invention. It is definitely one of the top 10 best inventions ever made in my mind. Lately I have been in awe of everything around me…sort of like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. But you can’t live in awe of life. It is exhausting. The adrenaline rush overdrive will either make you crazy or dead. Some part of life is meant to be wasted. What a catch 22 it is…you can’t have much fun when you intend to have fun.”

Two puffs of smoke later.

“What would I want to say before I die? I don’t think anyone can really know until the moment they die and then it is too late. You can never really fake your own death in your mind. I mean look at me…I know people die. I have seen the limp bodies. I know they never come back. It is still very unreal to me. The second hand experiences of others dying does not convince my mind that my death is impending. I know I will die but I secretly don’t believe it. It is actually pretty amusing.

It is a very surreal mind exercise. You should try this sometime…fake your own death in your head…try to face your mortality. I mean really try and you will realize how delusional the brain is. My brain is taking the thought of me dying as seriously as it takes the occasional fire drill at work. The thought puts my brain in a loop. I have always lived with a feeling of invincibility. My death is one piece of reality that my brain does not process. If I think about it long enough to overcome the inconceivable probability of my death in my mind it gets more exhaustive than imagining an infinite space. It is bizarre.

But I have pushed myself hard enough to think about what I would say if it was the last contact I could make with everyone and everything I had ever known. All I have come up with is that it feels incredibly depressing. The thought strips me off my rationality and intelligence….it leaves me in an emotional wasteland. All there is left is feelings because the meaninglessness of it all disarms the thought process. It is a point of no return. The questions about why death happens are erased because the futility of knowledge at the threshold of life and death is overwhelming. The questions about how it happens or what happens after one dies are frivolous at that point because they are about to be answered. Whoever said change was a good thing was not talking from their death bed. Come to think of it, those who get to be on the death bed maybe the lucky ones because they get to say a final goodbye to their loved ones. I am reminded of the 9/11 phone calls the victims made to their family. Call after call the words that were uttered were the same…I love you”.

Krish’s face softened. The screen went blank. Krish appears in frame again.

“I took experiencing life a tad too far with the hot dog this morning. Some things are best not experienced…like the ordeal I went through in the last 10 minutes. But I don’t even feel like complaining about it. When I think about my options as a dead person suddenly everything that I have now seems fantastic. I can get up from this couch right now and go do…(lost in thought)…I can think of a hundred things. That is just incredible”.

The screen catches Krish’s half smile before it goes blank.

(...to be continued)

Ankhen nikalke gotiyaa kheloongi

2006-10-28T14:09:00.001-04:00

GHOSTS AND GOBLINS SPROUTING EVERYWHERE
CRAWLING IN THE DARK TO GIVE YOU A SCARE
FAIRIES AND WITCHES COME OUT TO GREET
SHOUTING HAPPILY TRICK OR TREAT

HAPPY HALLOWEEN :)

Diwali wishes

2006-10-21T02:43:00.000-04:00

Better safe than sorry

2006-10-13T03:17:00.001-04:00

My advisor told me a scary personal story today. Her father was in an accident a while ago and was admitted in the ICU. There was no conceivable improvement in his health for weeks. Then her father acquired infection in the hospital due to his weak immune system. More than a month passed and there were no signs of improvement. So the doctor decided to pull the plug. My advisor asked the doc if her dad had any organ failures and the doc said that wasn’t the case. My advisor was appalled and took it up with the director of the hospital. Eventually the doctors decided against euthanasia. After 3 months her dad recovered and was released from the hospital.

This brought up several issues in my mind. Her dad would not have survived had it not been for my advisor’s resourcefulness. She was knowledgeable enough to make a call on the diagnosis given by the doctor. She did not treat doctors as the authoritative figure to make the decision. Had she put blind faith in the doctor and given up on her dad because the doctor said so, her dad would have died that day.

From personal observations I can say that everybody does not take the initiative to understand and investigate the treatment options available. Some are afraid that they may not have the aptitude for understanding all the issues with medical treatment as they did not receive any medical training. Others have faith in the medical staff and don’t intervene. There may be other reasons to it that I am not aware of. But time and again I have heard about medical mishaps, some of which could have been prevented had the patient’s family taken an active role in the process.

It is a very difficult time and a stressful situation when you have a loved one seriously ill in the hospital. Many people shy away from the patient because they are afraid they might break down in front of the patient after seeing all the machines and tubes hooked up to the body. It is very hard, but I hope that if ever you are in that situation you find the courage to be there by the bedside for the patient. As I suggested earlier, I hope you take the initiative to read up on the disease and treatment. There are many websites that explain the disease and treatment procedures in layman’s terms. Although prepare yourself to be emotionally strong because many of the scientific articles that you may come across may be blunt about the risks of the treatments and disease prognosis.

It is important that you are aware of what is going on. The doctors no doubt are trying their best to treat the patient but there are many diseases where there aren’t definitive treatments. Medical mistakes happen often and some of them can be prevented by your awareness. There was a case where a diabetic person was admitted to the hospital for some other medical reason. There was gross negligence on the part of the nurses/doctors and the patient was administered a glucose drip. The person died. I hold the hospital liable for this death. No doubt they failed to investigate the patient’s medical history and the patient had to pay with his life. But I wonder if things would have turned out differently had the family been more vigilant and proactive in the treatment process.

My mother has received no medical training but she has enough medical know how to help out in a medical crisis. She has acquired the knowledge out of her own interest. If anyone in my family ever gets sick, she is always by the patient’s bedside making sure things are running smoothly. If the saline drip runs out because the nurse forgot to switch the empty saline bag with a new one she fetches the nurse. She may not be able to match the medical expertise of a doctor but she contributes in whatever capacity she can.

The medical staff is there to help you but at the end of the day it’s just a job for them.

P.S. Store your emergency contact's phone number under the name ICE (In case of emergency) in your cell phone.

Thought for the day

2006-10-12T22:27:00.000-04:00

Just screw it

Jukebox

2006-10-11T14:55:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately he is taken ladies.

Why bother?

2006-10-10T12:59:00.000-04:00

Got this in my mail box as a forward.

Haiku

2006-10-08T14:00:00.000-04:00

Me here,
You there,
Earth wide.

Failure is not an option

2006-10-06T22:42:00.001-04:00

For all those who want to pass exams without studying I might have something for you. I took the W.O.M.B.A.T. grade 2 on Jo’s website and I marked option B for every question start to finish. Jo has already said in the Rumor section on her website that everybody does NOT pass the W.O.M.B.A.T. I can proudly say that I got ‘acceptable’ on the exam.

So for those of you who maybe in a crunch on multiple choice exams take my advice. Take a pick and stick to it for all the questions. You might increase your chances of passing.

Mo money mo problems

2006-10-05T17:30:00.000-04:00

With great money comes great responsibility? Are the rich obligated to donate money to charities? Anousheh Ansari is being condemned for spending obscene amounts of money for a selfish cause such as space exploration.

For those of you who missed the articles and blogs on Anousheh Ansari, she is the first woman space tourist to go to ISS (International Space Station). She does not like being called a space tourist because she thinks a tourist is somebody who does not need any special training or preparation before s/he goes gallivanting. Anousheh had to go through months of intensive training before she could go to space.

She has invested more than time and effort in training for this adventure. She shelled out in excess of 20 million USD to get to ISS. This has inflamed some people who consider this huge amount of money wasted for personal thrills instead of donating to a charity.

I quote a comment on her blog :

I can’t imagine having $20 million dollars and doing something as selfish as putting myself on a spacecraft and going to space. The money you spent will not benefit anyone but you; you could’ve done so much more that is meaningful to so many more people. How can you look at yourself in the mirror every night when you have lived such a frivolous life? How could you have been so fortunate to have the money that you do and use it so that you are one up on your society friends at your latest cocktail party? Very sad that money does not equal conscience or responsibility.

First of all…it’s HER money.

She earned every penny by being a smart business entrepreneur and she has every right to spend it to appease herself. I cannot consider Anousheh to be a frivolous spender because she spent it on a space program. It is not like she spent her money building a house made of chocolate (granted that would’ve been awesome too). How can space exploration be frivolous? Going to space was something she had always dreamed of and worked very hard to fulfill her dream.

Having said that, it is true that people (like Bill Gates) who have ridiculous amounts of money can make tremendous difference in the lives of millions of unfortunate people. This brings me back to the questions I started with. Should rich people be held accountable to how they choose to spend their money? How do you determine which causes should be invested in and which shouldn’t? Should we not invest in space exploration until there is no poverty, hunger or disease on earth?

Clip of the week

2006-10-05T15:05:00.000-04:00

Tell me it isn't so...

2006-10-04T23:52:00.000-04:00

Take deep breaths...breath in...okay...I am not going to panic but I went to the grocery store and they did not have Haagen Daas Baileys Irish Cream. I told myself this isn't happening. Then a proud carboholic friend of mine said he was hunting for it last week and did not find it.

May day May day...this is not a test.

It's like the Krispy Kreme episode all over again. I cannot take it much longer.

For the love of sugar...where is it?!!! Somebody run to the grocery store and tell me they haven't discontinued this flavor before my blood-sugar system has too much blood in it.

First 6-string

2006-10-03T15:16:00.000-04:00

Are there any guitar players in the house? If so, can you give me some suggestions on what kind of guitar I should buy as a novice? Never played a guitar in my life and I am not going to let that fly. I am going to buy a guitar for meself as a graduation gift.

Can't wait!

T-rex's ride

2006-09-30T19:31:00.000-04:00

Today I saw T-rex driving his car with she-rex by his side. I was deeply content to discover that his car plate number was 420-_ _ _ (alphabets not revealed to protect his identity). I swear I am not making this up.

I could not wipe off the smirk on my face.

Game kar daaloonga

2006-09-26T17:52:00.001-04:00

Andaz apna apna is my all time favorite movie that I never get tired of watching. I found this game on orkut that jogs your memory through the movie. I felt that non-orkut members should also have fun, so here is the game.

The game is very simple. You answer who said to whom posed by the first person and then add another line from the movie. The next person will guess who said to whom posed by you and add another line from the movie.

This is my Q:

"Sir, shakkar daalney ka time ho gaya?"