Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Five Squeezy pieces & fishes

Filled with delicious humour this Brit radio show (5 squeezy pieces) sure does make me laugh loud. An all woman show, the jokes are feminist but nonetheless have a ring of reality to them. I remember seeing Meera Syal in rare snatches of short comedy pieces on the telly in India. I can't remember the name of that show but the tune is well etched in my head. BBC Radio has a wealth of wonderful programmes ranging from news to views. Right now listening to 'Foul Play'
where P D James ( my mom's fav mystery author) tries to solve a whodunit. In US, NPR comes close (not that close tho) to this kind of programming. Best feature of all - no intermittent ads that break the flow!
Wow..I discovered another great show - The Goldfish Bowl where the fish watch the relationship problems of their owners.

Can life get better ? :)

Monday, April 25, 2005

Kill the Idiot Box

Finally a way to zip the lip of that ad on TV. Use TV-b-gone to shut off annoying voices soliciting you - to buy cars you can't afford, to try new exercise machines (you are always going to be overweight in the eyes of the media), to taste the new menu addition in Olive Garden (this is the first time I have seen a restaurant advertise dishes!) etc..
The sweet sound of silence awaits humanity.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Chandramukhi

Aah! What happens when someone who is not a Rajini fan watches this movie ? She is mighty impressed. Not with the colorful kite flying or the slapdash matrix effects but with the fact that perhaps the movie was bigger than the Superstar for a change.
No one liners that you will be subjected to till the next Rajini release (atleast if you are in Chennai) and no cute double-entendre political dialogues, although I must comment that a couple of them were pretty salacious.
I cannot quite remember the story of BABA (tho I love the ring of B 2 the A to the B 2 the A) but I think it had some supernatural component which did not quite appeal to my well-trained rational mind. Chandramukhi was sensible with huge doses of psychiatric talk appealing to self proclaimed scientific minds. To cater to the faithful, Rajini retains the special pujari in the end (although logically that does not serve any purpose, except for giving Jyothika a chance to roll those XL sized eyes)

Good entertainer, especially if you are starved of Tamil movies like I am.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Did you know..

It is physically impossible for you to lick your elbow. Let me know if you can.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Aye-aye

Lemurs don't top my list of favorites but the aye-aye is truly scary. It gives me goosebumps just looking at the picture, so I do not dare to post it here. Legends have it that aye-ayes bring death to the village they are seen in. No doubt, seeing the glowing orange eyes at night might have caused a couple of oldies to pop off. However, beauty is only skin deep. So I think we should give these weird ones a chance especially as they are almost extinct.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Evolution


Evolution
Originally uploaded by sublaks.
Beware of the man in the middle. He is the most dangerous of them all.

Forget the PhD

Now that we can randomly generate research papers and have them accepted too (!!) why do I even need to continue studying?

For all those rants and raves use auto-complaint generator

Courtesy : slashdot.org

Monday, April 11, 2005

Browser conspiracy

I did not think it would be true, but it is. I wanted to download Dot Net framework. Since I use Mozilla I was directed to a different site . The download freezes after a certain point and the estimated time for the dl to complete was given as 1 hour odd (I have a 12 Mbps speed!)
I tried the same with IE and the whole process was done in under 20 seconds.

Have to use chopsticks to eat your noodles whether you know how to or not, in the MS world

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Birds of a feather flock together


hats
Originally uploaded by sublaks.
I am no fashion expert but Charles-Camilla wedding could spark off some fiery protests by SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,throw in some birds too)

Analyse their hats. One could mistake Camilla's head for a lost porcupine. Although I doubt if anyone could look so elegant with a rodent burrowing into your hair. Or perhaps her hat was a metaphor. Don't you dare mock me for I am armed with shrapnel. Annabel Elliot (extreme right) follows her sis with a feathery touch (now some bird is towering as her crowning glory). Laura,her daughter seems content with sporting a nest.

If anyone out there seems appalled by my analysis..too bad. This is how girl geeks think about fashion.

Rock Paper Scissors

Perhaps my childhood talents could prove useful after all. There is actually a North American Intercollegiate RPS competition. You also have a world RPS society! Their site enlightens you with strategies, rules and tips for coaching students for the all important competition. I am not sure if the article How to get most out of coaching young RPS players was supposed to be funny, but it totally cracked me up.
As I browse the site I realise that this is serious stuff. Time out.. I need a couple of hours to let facts sink in, that I could have been a school drop out and made a living out of this

The following haiku posted by an RPS enthusiast sums it all -

You only live twice
Once when you are born and once
When you R.P.S

What is going on dude !?

Friday, April 08, 2005

Water = Child

Finally some smart bills being passed. Government of Maharashtra has told banana and sugar cane farmers they will not get water for irrigation if they have more than two children. Better deliver that third kid quickly before the Bill becomes a law, coz it doesn't apply to farmers who already sport over 2 off springs.

Now this is innovative stuff.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

You are not a lunatic just coz u talk to yourself

I am sorry but some people cannot help talking to themselves. Am sure many of you out there have done it, unknowingly. One cannot master 'monologues with the self' and hope to qualify for the insanity label. Of course there are people who are unaware of all these stipulations and hence, intelligent species like me get stereotyped.

In all honesty, I don't consciously start a conversation with myself. It is a cold day, with the snow falling all around. I see this girl wearing flip-flops and start muttering to myself about how some feet are cold-proof. And soon branch off into other topics like " Should I take the short cut across the slushy ground or walk around. If I did walk in the slushy snow, I could slip and that would be embarassing. However I would feel like Neil Armstrong if I did walk through it. But I don't think there was ever a moon landing. Hey given the rapid progress we should have landed in Mars by now. Perhaps the landing on moon was a hoax after all."

At this point, I notice some people staring at me and start castigating myself "Stop stop talking. You are scary. No, don't talk. Idiot. Can't you shut up. "

See, we are sane. We just don't think the majority would appreciate being hounded with thoughts like this. Hence the monlogue and this blog.


Monday, April 04, 2005

Amul Warrior


Amul warrior
Originally uploaded by sublaks.
Took this pic on last year's Halloween in the downtown. Thought he had a neat costume. And whats more, for a complete stranger he was charming enough to pose for a picture (in many different angles)
Slice that butter!

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Why am I growing fat?

The first two decades of my life I enjoyed all the fuss of my anxious relatives who encouraged me to eat. I was thin. So they worried about my marital prospects. Indian men then, were known to feel kindly towards well-rounded women. I did manage to entice someone in my 'thin state' of life, married him and continued bingeing. I figured that my metabolism could handle the high carb stress and I would remain in the same shape. However today my jeans from 2 years ago lie dormant on my shelf, whispering demeaning things about me. I hear them discussing their horrific experiences. She almost killed me trying to wear me..Aw, that was nothing, we almost made it but my lil button pal gave away..

My mom believes that every newly married woman does gain weight, out of sheer happiness that she has hooked an unsuspecting male specimen. Although I tend to agree, I feel that this reasoning might be flawed as once the happinness stabilizes shouldn't your weight stabilize too ? So I figured, she was just trying to console me.

I think it is the milk & family of related products (oh! Cheese members, heads on plz) that is doing all the damage. The reason I did not gain much weight in India was because of its population.

Increasing population -> deforestation -> less agricultural land -> hay given less importance (we humans come first) ->underfed cows ->low fat milk -> Q.E.D

So we battle obesity in USA by giving birth.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Correct instead of Criticize

That is the wikiness mantra which I believe holds true for life too. People seem to use criticism as a medium to achieve many different objectives - a joke at someone's expense, an outlet for own insecurities, jealousy, etc. The most positive effect of criticism would be improvement.
However, is it possible to criticize constructively and not demoralize the recipient ? I think the finest example of this would be my advisor. Till date, he has gone through innumerable pages of my supposed research outpourings and not on a single occassion has he lowered my self-esteem by negative criticism. And yet, at the end of each discussion I am fully aware of my shortcomings and feel rejuvenated enough to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Another striking illustration: He had gone to Mumbai,India for a week on a teaching assignment. For any westerner who has not visited a developing nation, my country is a shocker in many respects. And yet, when he returned, all he had were words of praise about the food, the people, the hospitality. It seemed like he had just visited paradise! I meet so many critical Indians here who openly shun my country, her pollution, the government, the poverty, the heat, etc.. Barring the lesson in patriotism, the moral of the story is : if you cannot correct something, shut up. Don't sit and bitch about it.

Looking back, I believe I am guilty of blogging a piece which is hyper-critical of someone. That will be deleted. I am learning too.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Happy April fool's day

Try this one