Sunday
Wednesday
Lots of Disco-Worrys Today!
Discovery News never fails to amuse me! Take the Animals Section for instance. Today I read:
Ants Slack Off for Colony's Greater GoodThere might be a lesson in this for my colleagues, but first I need to prove to them that I am the processing ant! And then I will work my way up to becoming queen and hire someone to be in charge of ant colony optimization. ;-)
Leaf cutter ants carry much less than they're capable of, research finds, but their small burdens turn out to be the perfect size for ants processing the leaves.
Zoo Animals Try Online DatingFeeling threatened by this animal invasion into social networks, facebook decided to become friends with the enemy. They let you create profiles for pets using the dogbook and catbook applications. They even let animals tittletattle about long walks and favorite comfort foods, but it seems more and more like their human parents are doing all the tittling and tattling for them these days. Here's where I read about it: Facebook with whiskers
Just like the digital dating services that pair up people, so-called studbooks are used to match most animals held in captivity. The databases containing information on sex, age and weight -- not so much about favorite comfort foods or long walks on the beach -- are used by more than 200 zoos nationally and some internationally. They're practically taking the place of Mother Nature in the not-so wild world of captive animal breeding.
Jamaican Lizards Work Out at Dusk and DawnThe head-bobbing sounds doable. Tapi? :-D
In a demonstration of reptilian strength, Jamaican anole lizards begin and end each day with a visual display that includes push-ups, head bobs and flashy showings of their colorful neck flaps, according to a new study.
Songbirds Duel With DuetsMy neighbors seem to be getting the sinister messages in my songs and not the sweet sounds! Hello birds, how about some tutoring on twittering this weekend!
Some sweet-sounding bird songs may carry a sinister message.
American Woolly Mammoths Pushed Out Siberian KinAnd thus began US imperialism. :O
DNA shows the world's last surviving woolly mammoths were born in the United States and the Arctic. Woolly mammoths from those regions displaced Siberian mammoths, causing the latter group to mysteriously disappear off the face of the Earth.
Tiny Critters Survive Space (With No Spacesuit)Spacing out, we can do too. (With no Spacesuit)
When it comes to surviving open exposure in space, a tiny invertebrate now stands out: tardigrades, also known as "water-bears."
Sunday
Blog Awards
I have been given the prestigious “Brilliante Weblog Premio 2008” awards by Sita and Suhas. With a lot of pleasure, I present mine to bloggers who make my day everyday!
Anil: for his abundant creativity.
Anita: for her outlook and latitude of thoughts.
Deepan: for his way of thinking
Sita: for her mad outbursts.
Sharan: for his simplicity
Soumithri: for his theories
Suhas: for his reminiscences.
Tushar: for his edifying features and line of attack.
Anand: for his writing. Even though you have stopped blogging, I give the blogger in you a posthumous award, with the hope that he will somehow come back to life. :-)
I have come to admire you all through your blogs. I visit yours everyday, so please don’t stop blogging. My day is less complete without it.
I was supposed to give this to 7 people, but since I am giving it back to Suhas and Sita, it is only fair that I add two more.
And now if the awardees will
1. Award seven other people.
2. Buy me any food or drink for this award, not necessarily a pitcher of beer. (Suhas and Sita, someday I will. I promise. Until then, if you will have a glass of milk daily, my employers will be happy)
Birds and Bees
Blog break again people! This time my laptop charger decided to seize up. :(
Since I have less than a minute before it shuts down, here is my unfinished post.
-------------------
This post is in memory of the wasp and the butterfly that died on my front porch in the last week. I stood very long watching their last moments of agony, goading them to move even though I was afraid of impeding their passing. I am glad it is over, even though their struggle for life will remain with me forever.
---
The year I joined film school, the cicadas came out of the ground after 17 years. In clusters of hundreds they would charge into every door or window, sidewalk or shrub, creating disruptive chaos for the few hours that they were alive. The shrill discordant singing of the males, their bright red eyes, their glossy black body, their long fragile wings, were all a miracle perceptible only for a month before they vanished. Before they died the females laid five hundred eggs each, the lives of which I may never see, at least not for the next two decades.
The cicadas gave shape to a lot of creative expression that year. All the films submitted by students that semester had one distinct but unifying quality, which was their allegorical interpretation of the insect’s existence.
---
As I walked out of my office the other day, I saw a full wing of a rock pigeon on the sidewalk. It was a very saddening sight. The wing looked liked it was cut clean with a knife at the joint.
---
What I like most about sparrows and pigeons is that they are reminders of home. They are the very same birds I grew up with in India. How strange that they must exist so many continents away. The ones in Dupont are fatter from the abundance of leftover food from the restaurants.
---
There is one kind of pigeon I have come to like in the US. The white ones with a brown head. They look so unlike the typical grey rock pigeons. Something about them makes me smile.
---
This winter our patio served as a retreat for a lot of birds. The northern cardinals and american robins were omnipresent the whole of winter and spring. I don’t see as many American robins these days and am beginning to miss their charmingly sprightly personalities, their heads held high, their quick hops, their beautiful song.
The male northern cardinals are imperial looking bright red things. They visited my apartment almost everyday throughout winter, although I saw fewer and fewer of them as the days went by. The female cardinals, with their elegant brown coat and bright orange beaks were so hard to find except on weekends when the curtain is open all day. In my opinion the females are unfairly held in low esteem because of their color.
We have been seeing warblers and chats fly past us quickly. They sit on our patio sometimes but only for a second, never long enough for me to observe them.
---
Lately we have had new visitors. The mourning doves, grey and brown come over every once in a while, seemingly oblivious to our presence. Despite their dull color, they are pleasantly delicate to look at and manage to grab your attention with their subtle grace if not anything else.
---
In winter, and more so in Fall we saw a lot of ring-billed gulls by the reflecting pool in the capitol. They are perhaps used to visitors, for they are impervious to tourists who come dead close to them. The gulls have a very stately appearance. Watching them circle overhead with their broad wings or glide smoothly in an effortless manner is pure pleasure. This is one of the few things I look forward to during the frigid days ahead.
---
The reflection pool at the Lincoln memorial and the Potomac river are home to a lot of dabbling ducks. The beautiful male mallards with their glossy green heads, brown bodies and black tails must give their dull brown female counterparts a complex if they don’t manage to attract them. The one thing I haven’t noticed of both mallards that I have seen in pictures is their bright blue wings as they take flight.
Some of my most memorable experiences with birds has been with mallards. Sitting in the Potomac with our bare legs in the water, Anand, Tapi and I observed the female mallards approach us from a distance to almost a foot away, staying put for a bit and then moving past us. The only dampener to the experience was having sewer rats clandestinely run past us, their cold sleazy bodies touching our feet.
---
American crows are jet black and shrewd looking, very unlike the grey-breasted Indian crows that have a gentle appearance. I haven’t been able to tell them apart from the ravens, except sometimes when they seem to look smaller and less shaggy. I am told the ravens are usually solitary, but I cant remember seeing large flocks of crows either. They seem to be in small groups of five or ten.
---
I have been seeing hawks and eagles soaring in the sky. But sometimes its hard to tell the difference despite acquiring some theoretical knowledge and seeing pictures. It may be that I haven’t studied them at all despite what I would have you believe.
---
Every once in a while I come across a black bird with a beautiful white tail. I have been wanting to know what that bird is. I hope I find out some day. My ignorance is only making me more and more obsessed with this bird. I look for it everywhere.
---
I am eager to learn the names of three bees that I saw this year. One im particular had enchanting features. It had a beautiful round glossy yellow body with black polka dots and a black head. I am also keen on learning the names of three butterflies that I found in the trail in virginia. I have taken a lot of pictures of flowers and am embarrassed to say that I don’t know the names of many. Such a shame!
---
The european starlings are still here. Their bewitching black coat with a peacock green shine is getting duller and the white spots all over the body are more apparent.They are still just as evasive, but even from a distance they wobbly walk is just as adorable.
---
Where did the new black squirrels and grey rabbits in the apartment building come from? The more I see them, the less I see the deer and the geese.
Since I have less than a minute before it shuts down, here is my unfinished post.
-------------------
This post is in memory of the wasp and the butterfly that died on my front porch in the last week. I stood very long watching their last moments of agony, goading them to move even though I was afraid of impeding their passing. I am glad it is over, even though their struggle for life will remain with me forever.
---
The year I joined film school, the cicadas came out of the ground after 17 years. In clusters of hundreds they would charge into every door or window, sidewalk or shrub, creating disruptive chaos for the few hours that they were alive. The shrill discordant singing of the males, their bright red eyes, their glossy black body, their long fragile wings, were all a miracle perceptible only for a month before they vanished. Before they died the females laid five hundred eggs each, the lives of which I may never see, at least not for the next two decades.
The cicadas gave shape to a lot of creative expression that year. All the films submitted by students that semester had one distinct but unifying quality, which was their allegorical interpretation of the insect’s existence.
---
As I walked out of my office the other day, I saw a full wing of a rock pigeon on the sidewalk. It was a very saddening sight. The wing looked liked it was cut clean with a knife at the joint.
---
What I like most about sparrows and pigeons is that they are reminders of home. They are the very same birds I grew up with in India. How strange that they must exist so many continents away. The ones in Dupont are fatter from the abundance of leftover food from the restaurants.
---
There is one kind of pigeon I have come to like in the US. The white ones with a brown head. They look so unlike the typical grey rock pigeons. Something about them makes me smile.
---
This winter our patio served as a retreat for a lot of birds. The northern cardinals and american robins were omnipresent the whole of winter and spring. I don’t see as many American robins these days and am beginning to miss their charmingly sprightly personalities, their heads held high, their quick hops, their beautiful song.
The male northern cardinals are imperial looking bright red things. They visited my apartment almost everyday throughout winter, although I saw fewer and fewer of them as the days went by. The female cardinals, with their elegant brown coat and bright orange beaks were so hard to find except on weekends when the curtain is open all day. In my opinion the females are unfairly held in low esteem because of their color.
We have been seeing warblers and chats fly past us quickly. They sit on our patio sometimes but only for a second, never long enough for me to observe them.
---
Lately we have had new visitors. The mourning doves, grey and brown come over every once in a while, seemingly oblivious to our presence. Despite their dull color, they are pleasantly delicate to look at and manage to grab your attention with their subtle grace if not anything else.
---
In winter, and more so in Fall we saw a lot of ring-billed gulls by the reflecting pool in the capitol. They are perhaps used to visitors, for they are impervious to tourists who come dead close to them. The gulls have a very stately appearance. Watching them circle overhead with their broad wings or glide smoothly in an effortless manner is pure pleasure. This is one of the few things I look forward to during the frigid days ahead.
---
The reflection pool at the Lincoln memorial and the Potomac river are home to a lot of dabbling ducks. The beautiful male mallards with their glossy green heads, brown bodies and black tails must give their dull brown female counterparts a complex if they don’t manage to attract them. The one thing I haven’t noticed of both mallards that I have seen in pictures is their bright blue wings as they take flight.
Some of my most memorable experiences with birds has been with mallards. Sitting in the Potomac with our bare legs in the water, Anand, Tapi and I observed the female mallards approach us from a distance to almost a foot away, staying put for a bit and then moving past us. The only dampener to the experience was having sewer rats clandestinely run past us, their cold sleazy bodies touching our feet.
---
American crows are jet black and shrewd looking, very unlike the grey-breasted Indian crows that have a gentle appearance. I haven’t been able to tell them apart from the ravens, except sometimes when they seem to look smaller and less shaggy. I am told the ravens are usually solitary, but I cant remember seeing large flocks of crows either. They seem to be in small groups of five or ten.
---
I have been seeing hawks and eagles soaring in the sky. But sometimes its hard to tell the difference despite acquiring some theoretical knowledge and seeing pictures. It may be that I haven’t studied them at all despite what I would have you believe.
---
Every once in a while I come across a black bird with a beautiful white tail. I have been wanting to know what that bird is. I hope I find out some day. My ignorance is only making me more and more obsessed with this bird. I look for it everywhere.
---
I am eager to learn the names of three bees that I saw this year. One im particular had enchanting features. It had a beautiful round glossy yellow body with black polka dots and a black head. I am also keen on learning the names of three butterflies that I found in the trail in virginia. I have taken a lot of pictures of flowers and am embarrassed to say that I don’t know the names of many. Such a shame!
---
The european starlings are still here. Their bewitching black coat with a peacock green shine is getting duller and the white spots all over the body are more apparent.They are still just as evasive, but even from a distance they wobbly walk is just as adorable.
---
Where did the new black squirrels and grey rabbits in the apartment building come from? The more I see them, the less I see the deer and the geese.
Wednesday
The Red One
Cowabunga! :D
Read the whole article
No. See this!
This certainly deserves a long post, but I needed to say something quickly before I somehow manage to get my hands on it.
Film dream finally realizable?
Wednesday
It is the middle of the week and I am anxious about something that I should be looking forward to. The weekend! I want to address this whole concept of time management as authored by many self-help gurus. I won’t lecture on what it is, seeing as it is the most puffed up of all vocation-related virtues and everyone is an authority on it. I am only concerned about where all the weekends go or why they go by so quickly! Self-help gurus don’t seem to have any words of advice on this.
I have a feeling I am not managing my weekend time well. I have it all figured out for the weekdays. For the most part things go just as planned during the weekdays, as if the schedule is made of cogs and a wound spring (like clockwork), “precise and with unvarying regularity.”
Weekends however are mysteriously short whether I jam-pack them with activities or lay languidly on my couch doing nothing. Nothing seems to help.
The latest trend among the new wave of Type As seems to be to refer to time management as a mislabeled problem - “because time just is, it cannot be managed.” Whatever that means! If you ask me, I might just rephrase that proverb to “because time just was, it is gone”
If you think of time as a force capable of acting on people, just like the other forces of nature, only without obeying the laws of nature, then it may explain why my weekends go by quickly. It follows that time affects the way I feel, rather than being a period during which action occurs, which is why my “conscious” hours seem longer on the weekday than on a weekend.
I remember reading Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman, in which the author narrates Einstein’s dreams in 30 short stories, each exploring how time might behave in different realities. In one story he speaks of how mothers move with their children to the center of time to avoid becoming old, because time stands still in the center. But, those living in the center of time don’t experience it because “experiencing” requires movement of time.
I wonder if Wednesday is the center of time, where time stands still, moving neither backward nor forward and the further away you move from it, the faster the time passes. Since weekends are the farthest from Wednesday, they slip away even before we can acknowledge it. This also explains why I don’t experience the beauty of time staying still on Wednesday. Time is so still today that I am not “experiencing” it.
To corroborate my theory, the last working day in the middle east is Wednesday. Cos, they are in a different time zone? :-)
---
On reading this post, Deepan had some great ideas that I take the liberty of posting without his permission. He uses the Wednesday theory to simulate real things.
If we assume Wednesday is indeed the centre of time then there are probably parts of the world where the day is always a Wednesday. It could be any other day, but since each day is exactly like the day before and the day before that it all seems the same. Two thoughts come to my head - deep inside a tropical forest where probably the sun doesn't even reach the land, each day would seem like the last one... or a poor man who sleeps every night hungry and wakes up every day not knowing where his next meal will come from, for him each new day is like the day before and the one before.
How cool is that!
Sunday
Like Potter Like Cho Chang :-)
Something about the Olympics reminds me of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. By saying this I hope I am not trivializing one or the other.
In the Goblet of Fire, there are two much-awaited events that take place around the darkest of times, one is the Quidditch World Cup, which incidentally takes place every four years and the other is the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts. Both events are centuries-old, spectacular in presentation like can only be imagined, and bring together people from all over the world.
Olympics is the only event I can think of that is just as magical. As I was watching the opening ceremony at the Birds Nest on TV a few days ago, I was awestruck by the coordinated movements of thousands of people, all performing dazzlingly in harmony. The vivid costumes and colors seemed straight out of a martial arts film, very much like that of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or the House of Flying Daggers.
Chinese culture seems so surreal that it almost resembles a dream in the way everything is so ethereal and mysterious. There is so much beauty, harmony in all their art forms that they take perfection beyond even the highest attainable standard. In some ways, some aspects of the chinese culture reminds me of the Minbaris in Babylon 5. :-)
The ceremony flaunted tradition that’s over a thousand years old. There were men playing rolls of old traditional drums, women wearing flowing robes of the Warring states period of ancient china, dancers sweeping ink strokes over paper, performers hiding under Chinese characters rising and falling in unison to demonstrate printing, dancers creating illustrations of ancient ships while bringing in the compass, printing blocks transforming into peach blossoms of the utopian gardens of peace.
There were times throughout the ceremony when I was almost expecting to catch a glimpse of a Chinese Harry Potter on Fawkes or a Thestral fighting a dragon to steal its golden egg.
The opening ceremony reminded me of the performance of the team mascots before the Quidditch game started, where the beautiful Veelas with their natural ability to bewitch men danced on the pitch, making every man including Potter feel “a floating sensation as every thought and worry is wiped gently away leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness.” Leprechauns flew in and showered the stands with gold coins that represent peace and security that the wizard world experienced ever since Voldemort lost his powers and formed green Irish symbols in the sky.
In Quidditch Through the Ages, the tiny booklet that comes along with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them, it is told that the name Quidditch is derived from Queerditch Marsh where the very first game was recorded to have taken place, very much like Olympic Games were first recorded in Olympia.
Coming to the dark side, there is a lot of discussion on the collateral damage of Olympic Games around the world.
Korea displaced about a million people in Seoul and thousands of women were raped and arson was used to break resistance.
Montreal plunged into debt and crippled Quebec's economy for three decades,
Athens killed 15,000 dogs that threatened to ruin the Olympics
Atlanta injured a 100 people in a pipe bomb explosion
Munich had Palestinian terrorists taking Israeli athletes and coaches hostage
Mexico City shot over 300 mexicans fighting for democracy.
Olympia destroyed greek penises!
Several countries boycotted the Olympics over the years.
The Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland refused to attend because of the repression of the Hungarian Uprising by the Soviet Union.
Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon boycotted the games due to the Suez Crisis
South Africa, Rhodesia were banned from the Olympic village and when officials refused to ban New Zealand, twenty-two countries boycotted the Montreal Olympics.
Cold War opponents boycotted each other's games.
Sixty-five nations refused to compete during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
It was natural therefore that China too saw dark times in the last year, with calls for boycotts in protest of China's poor human rights record and response to the recent disturbances in Tibet, Darfur, and Taiwan. There were a variety of other concerns raised as well, like severe air pollution in Beijing, warnings of a possible terrorist attack, criticisms of policies mandating the electronic surveillance of internationally owned hotels, the banning of ethnic Tibetans from working in Beijing for the duration of the games, displacement of residents, ticket adversities, and even christian advocates voicing concerns regarding the persecution of christians in China among many others.
While every other Olympics host country had one critical issue disturbing the event, China has had every kind of criticism to fight against, and many groups of people expressing strong disapproval over the event all at once. Still, this may be the first time in Olympics’ history that no nation withdrew before the games began despite these crises.
All this reminds me of the kind of enthusiasm with which the wizards’ awaited the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament even as there were rumors floating about the return of He Who Must Not be Named and the possible exposure to grave danger. Moreover the Triwizard Tournament had been discontinued for years because it became too dangerous, but was revived ironically at the most inappropriate time when it involved greatest risk and likelihood for disaster.
It may be that these events, both fictional and real are not in themselves dangerous, but they seem to mark the milestones for the darkest of times and do that with a lot of splendor and spectacle.
Perhaps that is what we need - Not the light at the end of the tunnel but a tunnel illuminated by light.
Friday
You say, therefore i am
A few people have been asking me why there is a sudden lull in my blogging activity, if it is because I am busy or going through a writers block or lacking inspiration. I am quite flattered that people think these could be possibilities, implying that I may have a life outside this blog and that my writing may have shown inspiration or creativity at some point.
Really, the respite is a result of growing up. I have suddenly become mindful of what I write about and how people might perceive me as a result of it. Sometimes I begin to write a post and even before I finish the first paragraph, I decide not to go through with it out of fear that I may be typecasted. I become that one thing I talk about, and everything else that I am ceases to be a part of me. Putting it mildly, how I am perceived has become a bigger priority to me than what I write about.
I have never seen myself as a writer. My writing has never been creative. It neither shows use of imagination in coming up with new ideas, nor does it make imaginative use of ideas or resources already present. I don't quite see that as the purpose of my blog. This is more a spectatorial activity. I see things, I feel things, I write about how I feel about what I see.
But now, in consequence to feeling acutely aware of people, an aspect I associate with growing up, I find inspiration everywhere and am unable to express them because of my inhibitions. But, enough is enough. I am taking back control and rejecting everything that prevents me from behaving spontaneously.
Really, the respite is a result of growing up. I have suddenly become mindful of what I write about and how people might perceive me as a result of it. Sometimes I begin to write a post and even before I finish the first paragraph, I decide not to go through with it out of fear that I may be typecasted. I become that one thing I talk about, and everything else that I am ceases to be a part of me. Putting it mildly, how I am perceived has become a bigger priority to me than what I write about.
I have never seen myself as a writer. My writing has never been creative. It neither shows use of imagination in coming up with new ideas, nor does it make imaginative use of ideas or resources already present. I don't quite see that as the purpose of my blog. This is more a spectatorial activity. I see things, I feel things, I write about how I feel about what I see.
But now, in consequence to feeling acutely aware of people, an aspect I associate with growing up, I find inspiration everywhere and am unable to express them because of my inhibitions. But, enough is enough. I am taking back control and rejecting everything that prevents me from behaving spontaneously.
Thursday
Maximum City
Maximum City, the book I am reading right now has stalled all other reading activity in my life. I read at a pace of 30 pages a day - 15 on the way to work and 15 on the way back. Still it is all the time I seem to be able to give to reading. But now finally, I can see the finish line. I am three-fourths on the way to making peace with my country or perhaps discomposing my faith in it, I don't know yet.
I am eager to express my thoughts about everything I have read so far, but I know I must wait till I finish. Perhaps tonight. Perhaps this weekend.
I am eager to express my thoughts about everything I have read so far, but I know I must wait till I finish. Perhaps tonight. Perhaps this weekend.
Friday
Beer Break!
My blog is on forced-leave for a week as a result of a beer accident. My laptop got drunk on beer a few days ago, the display screen looks blotched and the keys are all messed up.
We took it to the Apple store for a partial but expensive detox. I have to live with the blotched screen but I get to say goodbye to my keyboard. Perhaps, when it is back, I can blame my inebriated display for contorting brilliant ideas and producing badly written documents.
At work, I have been retraining myself to use windows for a few months. Microsoft Office 2007 has a very funky interface that is taking a lot of getting used to. It is a necessary exercise in the Buddhist tenets of patience, tolerance and acceptance.
I believe these are the same three tenets that Tapi has been using on me ever since he read "Happiness" by Mathieu Ricard. I believe I am the "windows" to his life.
Anyway, Adios till later?
We took it to the Apple store for a partial but expensive detox. I have to live with the blotched screen but I get to say goodbye to my keyboard. Perhaps, when it is back, I can blame my inebriated display for contorting brilliant ideas and producing badly written documents.
At work, I have been retraining myself to use windows for a few months. Microsoft Office 2007 has a very funky interface that is taking a lot of getting used to. It is a necessary exercise in the Buddhist tenets of patience, tolerance and acceptance.
I believe these are the same three tenets that Tapi has been using on me ever since he read "Happiness" by Mathieu Ricard. I believe I am the "windows" to his life.
Anyway, Adios till later?
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