Hola todos! I came back from the Amazons (Leticia and Amacayacu in Colombia) yesterday late afternoon and i have to say the whole thing was one of the most amazing experiences of my life - the grandness of the place, the life and fertility of the jungle, the natives, it was really amazing. we saw dolphins and monkeys and parrots and unfortunately no anacondas or pumas or snakes - only that they are around! We went for walks into the forest (not the jungle yet - we would have had to go very deep to get into the jungle) , climbed up trees up to 35 m high and i was so scared because fo the height and i was shaking and it was especially bad on the way down because at one stage we had to use a flying fox across a large stretch at 30 m height and another time we had to rappel down the rope the whole 35 m. Omg i acted like such a chicken - during this whole time the natives or people who were helping out kept telling me 'tranquilo' meaning relax - so now i know that word! Our english speaking guide was very good and we definitely have to get him when we go back - which i assume you will have to come with next time. It is so amazing. we went swimming in the amazon river with dolphins and piranhas all around us!! very cool. the air was pure and the kids were so cute.
I will write more later. I have to go now but it was wonderful, amazing and grand. Oh I also popped over to Peru and Brazil while I was there :-)
Oh wow, so I had an interesting chat with my Turkish-Armenian friend :-) She said the song Sari Gelin is Turkish though there are Armenian versions. It is a love song about an Armenian girl and is based on a 300 year old legend: A Turkish Muslim sees a very pretty Armenian girl and he falls in love with her and starts to follow her around. But he is Turkish and a Muslim - she is Armenian and Christian... and their families don't want them to marry each other. The lovers end up running away together but the girl's father, a powerful man, comes after them with his men and kill the turkish man. :-(
My friend said there are other versions where she converts to islam. The song itself is just a song by the guy singing about his love for the woman and how he wished they were of the same faith.
Or at least that's what my friend told me :-) She said that this is a very famous folk story and that there is a very interesting documentary about the problems between the Turks and the Armenians and it includes this story. Here is the documentary online, called Sari Galin: The Story.
Btw if anyone knows the story any way different, I would love to know it.
I heard this version of Sari Gelin a couple of years ago: The info about the video says the following: "Endless Vision (nominated for Grammy award 2007 for Best Traditional World Music Album in 2006), is a live recording with Hossein Alizadeh & Jivan Gasparyan on stage in the Niavaran Palace outdoor venue in Tehran (Sept.4-6, 2003) with more than 12,000 spectators. Songs in Azeri, Armenian, and Farsi; Afsaneh Rasaee's emotional singing stands out even though she can't sing solo on stage in a live performance in Iran. Jivan Gasparyan sings the Armenian lyrics with the calmness and assurance of a true master musician. The Farsi lyrics give the song a whole other dimension when they start."
The song is Turkish (or Armenian??) I believe and there are lots of the original version, such as this. Which of course are very beautiful and poignant. But the version of the video (and don't bother watching the video - just listen to the song) is really special - it has so many layers and levels. Then in the end when they sing the song in Farsi, I can actually understand what the song is about. Anyway I am glad they are nominated for a grammy - i should try to get my hand on the cd. Darn I couldn't find the english translated lyrics anywhere! :-( where is a turkish/armenian person when you need them! ^.^ oh I know the one... ok I will have to contact my contact! :-)
This is also a very nice traditional Kurdish song. I wish i new what she is singing about...
I have a jealous streak in me a mile long. I recently (last july) got a beautiful little cannon sd800 and I have been using it fairly often. I love taking photos, not just for capturing a moment for eternity, but also because i will forever be reminded of the moment - since my memory is kind of defective! Anyhow it is a tiny ultra compact with only a 3.8 zoom and some nice features. Today RS told me that she wants to get a compact as opposed to an ultra compact since its zoom can be so much better and how good it is etc. I am JEALOUS!!! Now I want a good zoom! In fact, I want a good 10x zoom in a tiny body of an ultra compact. Did I mention, for a cheap price? :-P
Last night I attended a flamenco concert by Edwin Aparicio and his company in the Gala Hispanic Theater in DC and oh... my... bloody dios!!! It was such a fabulous concert and the dancers were so good and hot and the choreography was so wonderful. My heart was pounding as they were dancing and I was getting sweaty just watching them and I was smiling like a bloody fool, just happy to be watching them! I didnt know what to look at, the guitarists (there were two Richard Marlow and Behzad Habibzai, both from DC), the singers (Jesu's Montoya from LA and Fe'lix de Lola from Seville) or of course the dancers (Edwin and his company and 3 guest dancers: Norberto Chamizo, Timo Nun~ez and Genaveva). The video above is from the martinete in the opening number when Edwin was just doing some great footwork. It was amazing, at times Edwin's feet were going so fast it was like he was levitating! Here are some of videos from some of the other dances by the company - i can't remember if the choreography was the same last night but at least the dresses were the same in two dances!
Below is a video of Timo Nun~ez that I found, performing at some other fiesta - the dancing realy gets going around the 5'30" mark.
I wanted to include it because he was a special dancer - you wouldn't believe the interaction he had with the crowd and how he flirted with the audience! His solo was more fun and cute, rather than heavy and dramatic, and my heart was pounding. I wanted to find a video of the other wonderful male dancer Norberto but i couldn't. He was very good, very fast and pretty interactive - refined and well put. Anyway it was a wonderful night. I loved everything - actually i love everything flamenco. I really feel it inside my me, in my heart and in my blood. I will have to continue my lessons when i go to CA. most definitely!
My good friend who is part astronomer @ NASA, part flamenco guitarist and part twinkled toes, Juan David, has made this video with his colleagues and fellow observers in Hawaii's Mauna Kea. It is a hilarious parody of Hotel California and lyrics, music and singing are all a la NASA. Here's what they say about the video: "Experience the plight of astronomers at the 14,000-foot summit of Mauna Kea! Veteran observers John A., Juan D., Kelly F., Ted K., and Tim Livengood took the HIPWAC spectrometer to the IRTF observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii and were inspired to write the lyrics to "Hotel Mauna Kea". Here, Juan, Kelly and Ted perform the song and all co-investigators star in this above-the-clouds music video. "Hotel Mauna Kea" is a parody of The Eagles' "Hotel California" by Felder, Henley, and Frey."
Mitch Albom, the author of Tuesdays With Morrie a really great book, has another book out called For One More Day - about a man who is granted his wish of spending one more day with his mother who had passed away.
The concept is interesting and it touches on something I thought about for some time, a while back - I used to wonder if you could somehow communicate with the dead, who would you pick and what would you say. In the case of the movie, i guess you can spend a day with them but the same basic idea. Btw the initial idea came from watching an episode of this reality show about a medium that could contact the spirit world. So, anyhow, who would it be? and what would you say?
You know, it's interesting to me, but i don't know. Is there a point of being granted one day, one conversation? Probably, 95% of people, would pick someone they loved, and tell them they love them and they were sorry. For some reason or other. And maybe simply hug them and try to absorb them into your body. I don't know. Probably I would be thinking too much that I will once again be bereft of their presence at the end of the day, the hour. Getting used to them gone might hurt too much! Probably what i would really want to know if there is a hope that you will re-unite with them in the future.
But it's funny, you think it is a simple question, but I really don't find it simple. Or am I over thinking it? %-)
Yesterday I got back from my long 2 week hiatus in beach land - first SF and then Wollongong. What a time was had. In Wollongong it was mostly just changing addresses, dealing with open accounts, etc. I also spent a long bloody time at the hairdresser, going back to my natural colors - blond and red of course :-P My hair now has a cool red section on one side. I have wanted to do that for a long time but was too chicken - this time i said what the heck and ripped into it proper. I really like the color actually, it reminds me of sunrise :-) On the last day, i also managed to catch up with some friends - most of my friends have moved away to Sydney and I didn't get a chance to make it up to Sydney until the very end when i did a marathon of visits. Speaking of the last day, the weather most of the time was cloudy and drizzly - which was annoying because i had so looked forward to seeing the sunshine. Fear not, on the morning of the last day, as we were leaving towards the airport, the sun was out, the sky was clear and I was cursing fate for being fickle. These are some other interesting photos I took - the top one are just the flowers of a tree which has fallen down. The one below was a hilarious, very crooked tree on St John's Ave in Mangerton. I wonder why it looks like that!
Last sunday I came to visit my Life Partner in SF. It has been a great visit so far - we spent all of sunday walking around SF. We started off Union Square and walked thru China Town where we had lunch at the loveliest Chinese restaurant "House of Nankin" - the food was wonderful. A must for anyone visiting China Town. [I'll put up pics in facebook] This is the green tea we had, with roses and other interesting things in it. Definitely get this as well! We then walked on thru North Beach area which is slash little italy. And walked on to Fisherman's wharf. A nice 5-6 hr walk, but really great. Everyone should do it.
The colors in CA are closer to the brilliance in Australia. Seeing the ocean in the background is like coming home. But the vegetation is interesting - somehow similar but definitely different. There are lots of really tall palm trees which we don't really have anything similar in Aus.
This reminds me of the little fern trees i saw in Banff near Calgary (Canada). The trees near the mountains are pretty small - it seems the trees are awake only 37 days in a year - the rest they sleep. So that's why they don't grow as much. Interesting no? Actually i just tried to find some reference for that 37 days, and I couldn't. But i didn't search very much.
We've also watched two movies: Beowulf in 3D and Love in the Time of Cholera. I will leave my thoughts on the movies till later post. Too doo loo for now :-)
Hot damn!! This is an oldie, but may I say, SUCH a goodie!!
"This one requires a little backstory. In 1972, John Boorman had just directed the critically acclaimed (and thrice Oscar-nominated) Deliverance. Actor Sean Connery has completed his next-to-last James Bond movie, 1971's Diamonds are Forever. The next step, logically, was for these box-office titans to join forces for 1974's Zardoz, a sci-fi flick about warriors who worship a huge flying stone head on a post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 2293. Wha? So, really, why not make America's favorite 007 don go-go boots and cherry-red nappies for the part? —Adrienne Day"
Last saturday I went to the concert of The Conga Kings at the Lisner Auditorium in GWU. It was my first conga concert and the beat was so addictive! My friend and I couldn't help but stand and dance! meanwhile everyone else was just sitting in their seats, nice and quite listening to the music!
The Conga Kings are an Afro-Cuban 11 piece rumba group with three congueros. Candido Camero was an 85 year old guy and really frail. When he was walking onto the stage, he was using a cane. But then he got behind the congas and he time traveled back maybe 50 years! you can see in the video how playful he got. The other guy Giovanni Hidalgo was also really great - his hands were moving so fast and he played so many different beats. The third guy, Carlos "Patato" Valdes, crowned by Tito Puente as "the greatest conguero alive" unfortunately was sick and someone else played in his stead.
The whole night was actually quite lovely. I went with my friend Juan D. and after concert and dinner, we went out dancing until they threw us out. :-P The funny thing was that once we got to the dancing bar, this group of people just started playing the congas - lets just say that after listening to the "best conga band in th world" we were not that impressed!!
I discovered Katie Melua, a Georgian/British singer, yesterday. Today I have been listening to her album Piece by Piece on repeat - it is wonderful. The song above, Spider's Web written by KM herself, is especially lovely. The lyrics are beautiful:
Cause the line between Wrong and right Is the width of a thread from a spider's web The piano keys are black and white But they sound like a million colours in your mind
May I simply say Yes! Joss Whedan is creating a new TV show!!! I still have a tiny tiny hope somewhere that Firefly will be back. But probably not.. so beggars can't be choosers. I now look forward to watching Dollhouse. But why the hell is he staying with Fox??????????
[ignore the following - i am just including this in here because i wanted to write this down somewhere and not lose it!]
Difference between MANET and distributed systems: - in a MANET, a node performs multiple functions. Therefore trust is no longer based on the node rather trust of the data itself. - in a distributed network, we use access control.
Voting schemes are vulnerable to the variability of the quorum.
I have already sent this video to a bunch of people, but every time i hear it, i get impressed by the logic and arguments of the chess master.. and how articulate he is.
I also liked the South park spoof of 300 - when Xerxes ended up being a... no no I dont want to ruin the twist. But a hilarious episode to watch - for those that haven't seen it.
I think one of the main differences between me now and me maybe 10 or even 5 years ago has been the realization that i don't need to be nice to people i don't like. I always used to want people to like me and cared about what people thought of me. If someone didn't like me, i would spend more time with them, trying to get them to like me. But i have come to the realization that i first have to decide if i like them. If i do, then i will try. and then only try when i know they are trying as well. A relationship is a two way street. You can't play a tennis game with only one player. ok I'll stop with the metaphors even though they're fun. Anyway now if i don't like someone, I don't care what they think of me. Or at least i care much less what they think of me. I don't have to put myself into a situation where i am involved with these people. I simply try to get myself out. For example, recently i went to a concert and none of my friends were there. So i saw some people i knew and i sat with them. But then i felt lonely and awkward. If i was sitting by myself i might have at worst felt lonely. So in the next half of the concert i went and sat in the back somewhere by myself and i watched people and i enjoyed myself and didn't feel lonely at all actually. So bottom line is... i think people shouldn't waste their time and energy on things they don't like. Don't be a bitch about it, but don't lower yourself.
Recently the hubby and I watch the movie The Prestige with Wolverine and Batman. In the movie, Wolverine contacted Nikola Tesla to build him a teleportation machine. Now as any physicist or engineer will tell you, Tesla is a name that is regularly heard in relation to magnetic fields and AC current. But I thought to myself, "how did Tesla get involved in the movie and the whole idea of teleportation? Why did the directors think of Tesla?".
After reading the following article, it all became clear! I knew Tesla invented AC current but wow - he invented so much!! and it seems he was famous for running currents thru his body to light up bulbs. Many argue that his work was much more important that that of Edison and yet the latter won is credited with more. Also there is some debate whether Tesla invented radio waves or it was really Marconi who is considered to be the father of wireless communication. And then there was Tesla's idea of sending waves thru the earth (so called terrestrial waves) to maybe light up every part of the earth? :-) was he responsible for a huge explosion in siberia?
He seems to have been an amazing inventor.
I recommend reading this article to get an idea. It doesn't require any background knowledge and then you will see why he is the man :-) Also a lot of things that are referenced in the movie now make sense!
There are those real-life men walking around who, by design or coincidence, have been gifted with names so manly you'd expect their penis to rip free of their pants and attack passersby. Here is a list of the 9 men with the manliest names in the world. I found this article on Digg.
The main change in my life recently has been the addition of a housemate for me! (why is it we call them roommates when they are actually housemates??) Since styx moved away (whom i miss a lot! =), I've been living on my own in a big two bedroom condo. The place is nice, but it got very lonely. and sometimes when there was noises in the night, scary. It was esp lonely because i didn't really have a lot of interactions with people at uni. Anyway since about 3 weeks ago the lovely Brooke moved in with me. Well actually she was an old roommate whose husband has gone AWOL and so we are once again roommates. It is lovely coming home to someone else in the house. We end up talking a lot and having lots of nice discussions about everything, ranging from politics to personal. And the other nice thing is that sometimes we cook for each other. It is such a pain when you live by yourself to first cook a proper meal and then to sit down for a proper meal. So it has been lovely having her around. ^_^
Amazing pictures that capture the moment a dolphin joins the world.
The blood is kind of disgusting but ehh... I've heard human birth is also not the prettiest moment! yikes!! On a related note... if this happened in the wild, would sharks be attracted by the blood? :-o
I am loving the Iranian government!! Now Ahmadinejad (A) has named the CIA and the US Army as a terrorist organizations. Read the following for a nice roundup of when, why, where. The Digg comments were also rather interesting and list more of possible `terrorist' activities perpetrated by the US, including the overthrow of the democratically elected governments in Chile, Brazil and Guatemala and installing military rule or senor Pinochet.
A lot of what A does and says is just stupid but then he does somethings that are sooo.. smart!! It shows the hypocricy of the age we live in. i mean even in the Columbia uni interview except for two questions, he answered well.
On another front, did everyone watch the annihilation of Paris Hilton at the hands of David Letterman? I felt sorry for her. She didn't know what to do. I wonder if she will ever come back on his show!
I learnt a nice word yesterday which applied to Ahmadinejad very well: Demagogue. "a person, esp. an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people."
The word captures him and his approach to politics so well! i can't believe i didn't know it before hand.
Speaking of the man, i have been so disappointed by the American reaction to the iranian president Ahmadinejad's visit and lecture in Columbia university. He was introduced with so much vitriol and condemnation and insult that i was insulted as an iranian. "Columbia President Lee Bollinger described Mr Ahmadinejad as a "cruel dictator" who denied the Holocaust. In response, Mr Ahmadinejad called the remarks "an insult", adding that more research was needed on the Holocaust." and later: "He received a hostile welcome from Mr Bollinger, who described the Iranian leader as "a petty and cruel dictator". "You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Mr Bollinger told Mr Ahmadinejad, referring to his denial of the Holocaust." Esp for iranian and the middle eastern culture, politeness to a guest is paramount and so the president of columbia uni basically played right into Ahmadinejad's hands by portraying Americans as.. well not good and nice people. The commentators also are all so rude.. seriously if they are only objective in their questionings and introduction, they would have managed to put the focus on A's words rather than their own. By printing out "The Evil has landed", The NY Daily newspaper does exactly what they accuse iran of doing. and yet they still adopt the holier than thou attitude.
You have all probably heard by now the tragic loss of Luciano Pavarotti - he passed away yesterday from a battle with pancreatic cancer. What a man. What a voice.
"I have had everything in life . . . And if everything is taken away from me, with God we're even and quits," he said in one of his last interviews. (what a quote...)
It is amazing when an icon leaves the living. It was the same with Princess Diana and Ana Nicole Smith (though to a much less degree). These people that live life so hugely suddenly leave us and create this hole that you never thought about. They are so much part of the world that their loss is strongly felt. I love Pavarotti's voice, the tenor, the passion. I think his voice was the one that attracted me to opera first. And then i heard him in concert in the three tenors concert and the love cemented.
And now we have reached the point when i share with you, my loyal friend, my favourite show of the day... Ninja Warrior (Sasuke)!! It is a Japanese show which consists of a competition in which 100 competitors attempt to complete four obstacle course stages. You can see how the 2nd Warrior ever won the final challenge in the video on the website. There are more videos on the website. Listen to the poetics the commentator waxes off!!! Lovely!
If you don't know who the Chasers are.. well, they are a satirical show in Australia and they have a War on Everything! Recently they were on the news when they penetrated the $250M security of APEC being held in Sydney. The show is hilarious - watch the following:
and then there is this one:
Btw - here are two more Maz Jobrani clips - the iranian comedian. He is SOOOO funny!!! Clip 1 and Clip 2
Isn't weird how sometimes dreams can be so real and vivid with so much detail? It makes me really wonder at our definition of reality and how many worlds there are that we are not aware of.
Last night I had a very vivid dream which was kind of a re-enactment of the collapse of the twin towers. Only this time, it was thunder and lightening (i think) which destroyed the handful of towers. My family and I lived in one of the floors of one of the towers, high up. We found out there was going to be a disaster which could potentially destroy the buildings and the land around us. Everyone was trying to think of where to hide to survive the disaster - a lot happened in my dream which i can't recall precisely, for example, me and some other people going to the top of the building thinking that might be the safest spot. (I know that doesn't seem logical!). In the end, disaster struck in the form of a lot of lightening - the first tower got hit and we saw that the damage was much worst than we expected - the tower started crumbling down. We knew that the chances of us surviving was really low if our building got struck. But then our tower got struck and the building started burning from outside to in. In the last few moment of my dream I was huddling with the rest of my family in a room and i could feel the fire around us and as the temperature was increasing, I remember wondering how fast we were going to die and i kept hoping i would not feel anything. And then i woke up.
An interesting article about diet tips, dos and don'ts. Ok starting today i am going on a health food diet and cut all excess junk foods. Wait can junk food be excess? :-P ok ok I'll do it!! lets see how long this lasts.
I have been away for the past couple of days in CA, visiting dazbend. It was his birthday on thursday so we have been celebrating non-stop. Dinner with friends on thursday night, gokarting on friday, whale watching on Saturday and walking around the uni and Telegraph st which is a cool hippy st in Berkeley on Sunday. I will write more about the events and post pics, probly on facebook - just wanted to update everyone on our recent activities.
If I have a boy I am going to name him: Mohammad Jesus Moses Abrahim Noah and his nickname is going to be: Buddha. Now the question is, does that name sound better with a Cardenas at the end or a Taban? :-P Or maybe the name has enough weight ad doesn't require a surname. Like Madonna or Prince. Hey what if I do a prince and choose a symbol for his name? Something better than an epsilon else he will have self-confidence issues.
Cereally though, naming a kid is so difficult. It is a decision that will effect decades or longer if you are lucky. No wonder I am not ready yet for a baby ......
boy. Now a baby girl is a totally different thing. Since I have already picked her name, the rest should be easy.. right? :-P
One of the songs i have been listening to a lot in the past couple of weeks is There Will Come a Day, and not by the original artist, Faith Hill, rather by one of American Idol contestants from last season, Melinda Doolittle. The song it self is amazing and i love the lyrics, not so much because of the religious overtones, rather because it touches upon the harsh realities that are often hidden in entertainment: "Wars are raging, lives are scattered Innocence is lost, and hopes are shattered The old are forgotten, the children are forsaken In this world we're living in Is there anything sacred?" But then the song goes into the theme of hope that: "There will come a day, there will come a day The song will ring out, down those golden streets The voices of earth with the angels will sing" and "There's a better place, where our Father waits And every tear He'll wipe away The darkness will be gone,the weak shall be strong Hold on to your faith"
The song really speaks to me. Maybe because the idea that a day wll come where the wrong will be righted is so irresistible.. of course i am not sure if i believe it, but it is something that you like to lie to yourself about. This is the Faith Hill version btw. When i heard it after Melinda's version, all i could think is how much that song deserves a stronger voice and how Melinda's version was more emotional.
Above is one of my favourite songs, based on the following essay, put to music by Baz Luhrmann. Every time I listen to it, it makes my heart lighter.
Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young
A newspaper column by Mary Schmich, published by the Chicago Tribune on 01 June 1997.
Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who'd rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there's no reason we can't entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.
I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
I never ended up talking about my favourite movie: Pan's Labyrinth or El Laberinto Del Fauna. I recently got the sound track and now I listen to it all the time and recall different moments from the movie. I find the movie so very very very sad. And yet the fairy tale land brings hope and possible meaning to the confusion of our ordinary lives. "A long time ago, in the underground realm, where there are no lies or pain, there lived a Princess who dreamed of the human world. She dreamed of blue skies, soft breeze, and sunshine. One day, eluding her keepers, the Princess escaped. Once outside..." I thought I would write something about this today, but then again i got lost in people's interpretations of the movie and the pics. It is a movie which appeals to all my senses and the juxtaposition of the beauty and ugliness of the world. Of the hope they we all have that there is more to life than the ugliness that we sometimes see. I've uploaded the first three tracks of the soundtrack which include the lullaby. The password is my real name all lower case. (let me know if you have any problems)
This link puts together some very funny Simpsons quotes - why is that show so funny? cereally!!! They come up with so many funny ideas. I can't wait to watch the movie. Meanwhile it is going to be a very busy weekend for me - a friend will get married, then attend two birthday dinners and possibly attend the sala rociera to dance me some sevillianas... ole!!
I have a new camera!! yay!! It is Canon IXUS 850 or ELPH SD800 depending on your location - the former is the european name and the latter.. wait for it.. yes american. But .. magic.. they are the same. Anyway It is a very cool camera, because of several features - first it is wide angle in a subcompact - though it is maybe a bit bigger than the average subcompact. Meanwhile it has a 3.8 optical zoom. Now the really nice features: it has image stabilizer so it compensates for shaky hands. Then there is the face recognition - the software is on the camera so it recognises the face(s) and focuses on them - for example when i was taking the above pic with my mac - it found the image of my face on the mac and focused on that!! how cool is that!! I think we are going to have a very nice relationship :-) For those who are interested, i got it from Dell for $280. I love new gadgets!!
This is the blog of this woman who worked as a clerk in a porn video store. It is actually a very interesting and entertaining read, well written and a lot of interesting comments about life, social order and anthropology. It is just a blog with no pictures or anything so you can open it anywhere. So far what i have read hasn't even been too sexual..
So it seems that the blogger is now a part-time actor and this is her new blog.
Talk about an ear worm!! I heard about this song on Digg, that it had become a huge phenomenon on you tube - so i went and listened to it and kept thinking what is everyone talking about - it doesn't even make sense. But oh no - after half an hour after i closed the video, i realized the song just kept going on and on and on in my head - "chocolate rain..." It is addictive!!!
Update on Puzzles: So how did people do on the puzzles? I put a link to the solution in the comment section of the first puzzle post. I still haven't seen the answers and not sure how you do the 2 and 3rd puzzles. Jeerjeerak's hint that you have to use only 10 people makes me think that we have to use some kind of a tree structure as follows: - give a drop of 500 bottles to one prisoner and a drop from the other 500 to a second. - see which one dies and so limit your search to 500. - then given a drop from 250 of the suspicious 500 to the second prisoner and a drop fromt he other 250 to a third prisoner. See which one dies and so limit your search to 250. - And so on. Except you need a lot more time than a month..... So.... anyone have a better answer?
I heard the following quote from the snippet of the movie "Shall we Dance" when i was channel surfing. Susan Sarandon first asks "Why do people get married?" to which she first says not because we love each other but rather...
"We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'."
Is that true? but what does it actually mean? because we can';t simply pick anyone as a witness right? to stay with them, we have to love them. Anyway maybe the quote is not as deep as i first thought. It is true though, marrying means getting that witness right? :-) bonus!
The warden meets with 23 new prisoners when they arrive. He tells them, "You may meet today and plan a strategy. But after today, you will be in isolated cells and will have no communication with one another. "In the prison is a switch room, which contains two light switches labeled A and B, each of which can be in either the 'on' or the 'off' position. I am not telling you their present positions. The switches are not connected to anything. "After today, from time to time whenever I feel so inclined, I will select one prisoner at random and escort him to the switch room. This prisoner will select one of the two switches and reverse its position. He must move one, but only one of the switches. He can't move both but he can't move none either. Then he'll be led back to his cell. "No one else will enter the switch room until I lead the next prisoner there, and he'll be instructed to do the same thing. I'm going to choose prisoners at random. I may choose the same guy three times in a row, or I may jump around and come back. "But, given enough time, everyone will eventually visit the switch room as many times as everyone else. At any time anyone of you may declare to me, 'We have all visited the switch room.' and be 100% sure. "If it is true, then you will all be set free. If it is false, and somebody has not yet visited the switch room, you will be fed to the alligators." What is the strategy they come up with so that they can be free?
A bad king has a cellar of 1000 bottles of delightful and very expensive wine. A neighbouring queen plots to kill the bad king and sends a servant to poison the wine. (Un)fortunately the bad king's guards catch the servant after he has only poisoned one bottle. Alas, the guards don't know which bottle but know that the poison is so strong that even if diluted 1,000,000 times it would still kill the king. Furthermore, it takes one month to have an effect. the bad king decides he will get some of the prisoners in his vast dungeons to drink the wine. Being a clever bad king he knows he needs to murder no more than 10 prisoners - believing he can fob off such a low death rate - and will still be able to drink the rest of the wine at his anniversary party in 5 weeks time.
In the next few posts, I will upload three different logic puzzles which I thought were interesting. I won't put up the answer and people can reply in the comment sections. If you have already seen these puzzles, don't give the answers. I don't know the solutions to two of them yet myself!! :-) Are you ready... get set? GOOOOOO!!
Here is a song that Justin Timberlake did with Saturday Night Live people, that seems to be up for an Emmy for best original song. It definitely is original!! and it is not for the faint hearted! :-P ps. Maybe I am started a new earworm! :-P Dcik in a box, woo ooo,...
This was the best blog post i have read in a long time - and it is from non-other than our own Jeerjeerak! and I think Alvaro, Juan and Chris will all like the WWW very much :-)
Is my birthday soon? Why is it that during the time of my birthday I had no idea what I wanted.. oh no, I had everything I wanted. And when my mum and my husband asked me about what i wanted i couldn't say what. But now.. alas, I have something i want. So can my birthday be next week? :-)Check out this beautiful female binary watch .. which is ultra cool. or is that ultra geeky? I don't know and I don;t care. This is one watch that I want! :-) The only thing is that I saw this watch on the wrist of thi guy at the conference last week.. and it is pretty big watch. It kind of engulfed his hand. So I just have to make sure it doesn't swallow me up... but to be swallowed up by a binary... may be that won't be so bad! :-P
It is so funny how people keep telling me to change my pic!! I thought it was funny but others think i look mentally challenged! :-P Ok next project change photo! What do you think of my new photo? I personally miss the cross eyed, crazy look of before.
This was the day of my talk - the night before it, although I had gotten home late about 11pm, I managed to go over my slides before making myself go to sleep at 1am and then i kept waking up in the middle of hte night, because i was so worried i was going to oversleep. My talk was straight after lunch so lets just say i didn't eat much lunch either. It went ok, not the greatest but ok. People asked lots of questions and I think did ok answering them. But I wasn't expecting much anyway. The worst part was when in the middle of the whole thing i forgot the word 'space' so after I said 'key' I paused and my mind was frantically trying to think of the word 'space' but I couldn't remember it and everyone was just looking at me and omg, probably thinking what an idiot!! I could see at least one person smiling at me, probably thinking poor girl!! Afterwards I was so relieved my mind was numb. It is funny how I never realize how nervous i am until afterwards when the pressure is off. We had the conference dinner that night and then I went out with a bunch of people from ETH and another German named Leif and a Polish studying in the Netherlands named... damn!! I knew I was going to forget at least one name. That is why I am making myself write them down. In case I forget. And I ended up talking to him a lot of the night as well. He was an interesting guy with lots of interesting commentary about Poland. Here are some of the funny things I learnt from him: - The president and the prime minister of Poland are twins. Really?!! and they are ultra-conservative. - They were trying to make Jesus Christ the king of Poland. It didn't work out though. I think what with him missing from the coronation and all... Really are these things true? can somone check for me??!!!
- omg he asked me what the top two largest countries in Europe were and I said Ukraine and he said that was the second and France was the first. HUH!! According to the following Ukraine is bigger than France!!
I left London for Cambridge. I got here (Cambridge) after a lot of hassle - I was worried about my adapter problems and so once i got to king's cross i decided to try to buy another adapter before i get to cambridge because who know how many shops are open in a small town - seriously i was walking around kings cross with all my baggage and then i found out the train to Cambridge didn't leave from there on sundays and i had to go to another station and.. anyway I finally caught the train which takes about 50 minutes to get to Cambridge - once i got there i caught a bus to the city center and walked to the place i was staying at - it was one of the colleges called the Sidney Sussex. I dropped all my baggage in my room, exhaled a sigh of relief because i actually had gotten there! Then the next worry was what time the conference people were meeting to go punting. I wanted to meet some of the people since i didn't know anyone and I also wanted to try punting actually :-) and I thought afterwards I will walk around the city of Cambridge. Oh my how glorious Cambridge is. I will get to it, but I loved it so much. It is wonderful and beautiful and .... anyway so I went to the office to see if the conference had left any info about the punting at the Cannes river. I got to the office and I saw a bunch of people standing in front of the office - I thought can it be? can i be that much on time? Most of the people were Europeans who did not look that geeky so I wasn't sure if i was in the correct place - but then i saw one or two geeky looking people and they were mostly men so I thought can it be? so I made myself go and introduce myself. Now that was kind of scary!! anyway so it was them and i joined them and we left for the punting expedition. I ended up getting into a punt, punted by Stajano himself! :-P on my boat there was an Austrian Rene, a German Christoph and a Japanese of the unknown name who worked under Prof. Imai. Our group was a lot of fun - and we all took turns at the punting. It is actually pretty hard trying to maneuver the thing, make it go in a straight line while you still have some speed. After the punting, we all went to dinner and some drinks. I met another German guy Ulrich with his Brazilian girlfriend Luciana who was studying in Germany. She was in EE and the paper being presented was a joint paper. ooh how romantic!! :-) It reminds me of my two lovely papers with dazbend!! seriously how geeky do i have to be to find this SO romantic! Actually getting into this topic, dazbend and I had two papers together the year we got married. We made sure we were joined for prosperity!!!
I went for a walking tour of london - unfortunately it was raining or drizzling the whole day so I walked around with an umbrella in my hand the whole time and my pant legs were wet! Lets see.. I got off the underground at St James Park and walked to Buckingham Palace, went back thru the park to West Minister Abbey and Big Ben - the parliament is really very pretty and all the buildings.. then across the bridge and I once again passed this statue of the two women riding a chariot - i forget who they are but i do remember that last time i was there i was very impressed then as well. There is so much passion involved in the faces - i will definitely upload the pic when I get a chance. I walked past the Dali museum - the statues were still there and i still loved them. The museum housed Dali statues and picasso watercolors - i was really tempted to go thru it but i thought that i didn't have enough time to spend inside a gallery. Anyway i crossed over the river again on the Jubilee bridge - sat at a cafe and ordered myself a pot of tea - the bloody thing had 4 cups of tea!!! i kept drinking and it wouldn't finish!! Afterwards i was walking up to Picadilly Square where I saw this huge crowd - music and all these gay men.. actually i started seeing a couple of flaming gays whilst drinking tea - and i was wondering what was going on!! so it seems that London Pride was going on. that is, the gay and lesbian pride festival. There was lots of alcohol and some gay behavior and i am not talking about the happy kind :-P of course it was nothing compared with the Sydney Mardigras. There the gays really show they are gay!! T&A galore! I listened to some good music whilst walking around and had a really nice free ice cream. I then walked around some more and finally decided to visit Harrods which is supposed to be this fantastic shop which is worth seeing. Ok let me just say looking around a store which sells Armani and Gucci and other brands that i have no idea about and can in no way afford. Harrods is this huge shop where you can get lost going from floor to floor and room to room. Anyway i wasn't too big a fan. I had dinner with friends here and i met Yasaman who is the niece of one of my 'aunt's Manzar. She is a nice girl :-)
When i got there, Rouhi was out but she had left instructions with some cleaners. I had a little nap and since R was coming back about 6-7pm, i wanted to go out for a bit - unfortunately based on advice of R , i went to Richmond which is really nothing but some shops - there is a nice view but that was not even that nice. So I ended up walking a fair bit and got home about 7pm. I had a nice dinner and chat with R before going to sleep.
Normally there is no reason to write about day 0 - that is the day you get on the airplane and leave for the bigger and better things. Alas in my case i need to. United messed me up so bad that i am planning on writing a complaint letter to united upon my return. Seriously these people are defective. Although I was in the check-in line within the required time - that is at least 2 hours before my flight. However due to staff shortages, the line was huge and by the time i got t the front of the time, it was 40 minutes to my flight and they said the flight was closed. Meanwhile they had been letting people from other flights in front and several people from my flight got totally screwed. This very unfriendly woman told me too bad and told me to go and stand in another line. So i went to the other line with several other very pissed off people - My comrade in arms were two american guys - one (Tom) was studying his masters in Oxford on middle eastern studies and actually he was very interesting. More later. The other guy (chris) was a younger undergrad who was going to Oxford as well for a summer of studies and i guess traveling. Can you believe he was also going for studies in middle east? these guys were totally unrelated. they were both on my flight. Also in the line was a girl from Puerto Rico I think her name was Lucy - she was going to Zurich with her husband who was Indian - you don't see that very often right? anyway after 2 hours in line, not knowing what was going to happen we were sent to the gate for standby. I was lucky number 13. So it seems when you go on standby it is not a first come first serve basis - people with more mileage point than you as well as people who have paid more money for their ticket end up getting priority. Like crazy we all went to the gate and waited, pretty certain 13 people were not going to miss their flight. Anyway suffice it to say we didn't know until the very end of the boarding time and then I was lucky number 13 - some people in the wait list were not there and so i ended up being the final person they ticketed, Lucky me. The rest fo the flight was pretty normal - i got the middle seat, with two big guys on one side and two other big guys on the other. Fortunately big here didn't mean fat. but they were all really big. and i watched The Life of Others, the German movie which got the oscar for foreign movie - and although itwas good i kept falling sleep - lets just say the subtitles were not easy to read. so that was it. I got to London on friday morning and by the time i got to rouhi's house it was 1pm or so.
I found the following info VERY useful: here is what you should watch for to get a sweet watermelon. - Tap the watermelon with your knuckles and listen for a hollow sound - There should be little color contrast between the green stripes - The end should be going from white to light yellow - Press your thumbs into the skin from all angles. It should be hard all around. - the stem should still be green. If it's brown and withered, that thing's been off the vine too long I eat SO much watermelon in summer - they are my absolute favourite fruit - EVER. :-) so sweet and red. I love the seeds. I don't know why they keep producing the seedless kind - that's like nature all messed up. How are we going to have watermelon plants if they don't have seeds? and I am still waiting for the plants to grow inside my stomach!! :-P
Speaking of reproduction, can you imagine birds doing it? It boggles the mind. But they must right. Wouldn't the tail of a bird get in the way?! :-P I am really confused!!! See what amazing things are in my head?!!
This post will be simply a collection of observations and comments about Hollywood :-)
1 - Kelly Clarkson's new CD My December is really good! I really tried to resist her because of her American Idol connection, alas she is too good a singer and song writer. And she seems like a genuinely nice and fun person. Check out some of her songs: this one ("Because of You") she originally sang along and now in collaboration with Reba McEntire - it's a really nice clip. Also seems she wrote the song when she was some ridiculous age like 15 or 17. This set is of a bunch of songs with Reba McEntire. I wonder why she has started collaborating so much with RM. Not that it is bad, because they seem to genuinely have fun - just wondering. Anyway to finish off, her new CD is really good :-)
2 - Tom Cruise looks ridiculous these days!! his haircut and his clothing etc, he looks like he is trying to look very young and boyish, meanwhile he is not that young Todo!!
3 - I watched the movie The Shooter with Mark Wahlberg on the plane - a really really bad movie. Bad acting, bad plot, really bad plot actually, and lots of "that doesn't make sense" moments.
Damn.. I had all these comments about Hollywood people, alas I started writing about Kelly Clarkson and I lost track of what i was thinking. Oh well. Does anyone else have any insight? :-P
Next Tuesday will be the final night of my first semester of Flamenco - I have really really enjoyed myself, learning and dancing. It's a huge rush everytime we go through one of the routines and I actually do it well. Of course many times I don't but hey, it's better to forget those times! :-) It is a shame I won't be performing in the recital :-( Meanwhile on TV, the new season of So You Think You Can Dance in underway. So every wednesday for the past 2 weeks I have enjoyed 2 hours of dancing on TV - and these couples are really good. Cereally!
[Ref. South Park episode of ManBearPig with Al Gore where he kept saying I'm totally cereal! and I'm super cereal! - Everyone knows how to access the episode if you haven't seen it right? Alvaro and I have been killing ourselves with this expression!! :-P]
Anyhoo, check this site for some of the dances of the night. I recommend watching this one by a hiphop dancer (the guy) and a contemporary dancer (the girl). It is really a lovely piece and the story it tried to tell is just beautiful. I almost feel like it can be about any relationship. The human body is just amazing to me - when I hear a beautiful voice, when I see a beautiful dance... it always amazes me the power we all have in our hand.. i mean body! :-P
Really interesting set of pictures, chronicling the life of a panda fetus!! It is interesting that the nose is so big at the beginning! it reminds of what i had heard before that one of the features of the face doesn't change size from when you are a kid. Was it the nose, eyes or ears?!!
Last weekend my lovely husband visited me - It was really a wonderful weekend. There is not much to describe, we played around on my new mac, we had dinner with his cousin Jean and her husband - she is pregnant and she was due last weekend - no show though and we are still waiting to hear :-) It was a lovely night. On sunday we did a little bit of shopping.. and bought a beautiful red shirt for Alvaro. So it was a quite weekend, not much to write about but very lovely. Am I overusing the word lovely? :o)
the mac has crashed once; thunderbird has crashed twice; firefox has crashed once.
I have not owned this computer for longer than the number of times it and its applications have crashed. Can it be that windows has been to blame for what it is actually the fault of intel?
update: sorry number of times should have been number of days. Styx is being a stick!! :-P Also Valardur, my mac did a restart so that is as bad a crash as it can be. :-( It was actually kind of funny, because it took me a while to understand what the screen meant!!
Biogeek has put up an interesting video of Lewis Black talking about Google - It is interesting that is was only today that I was reading the following article about Google being the most invasive of all net firms. The empire they are building is really expanding what now with news of their uni mails being rolled out.
I am starting to have a very bad feeling about Google....
I must confess that although I am a sometime blogger, I don't really read any other blogs except for a couple of friends who rarely update. So the following article was very interesting for me. It lists the top 25 most visited blogs of June. I haven't had a chance to look at more than a couple - but my they are interesting! Check out Boingboing for the above amazing pic of a baby wallaby. They also have some very nice old mexican music. Then there is downloadsquad which keeps you up to date about downloadable software. And.. well you can read the rest. Unfortunately there are many interesting sites. bugger. Update: I just found this other website which is hilarious! It is called SayNoToCrack and the picture above is just one of the posts. About the picture it says "This 15 lb tabby cat chased a bear up two separate trees in rural New Jersey." Here is a link to the National Geographic article. Oh I think I will have to bookmark this website!
Check out this test for racism designed by some people in Harvard.
My results were as do follows: "Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between African American and European American." However I would have to say that I am not sure how good this test is - personally I was getting so confused and the black and white faces looked so much alike that have the time it was simply random! The other half was pseudo-random.
seriously... how reliable can such a test be?!!
Btw, I am on a role today with all my posts! :-)
update: I just saw this comment on digg which i thought was appropriate for me as well... "Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between Light Skin and Dark Skin." - No it suggests I wanted to win the damn game.. I didn't care what color they were as long as I didn't make any mistakes. Flawed test for gamers/competitive people.
I found the following extremely cool 3D experience.
Try the virtual barbershop experience here - you have to put on your headphones and close your eyes.... and wait for the magic. It is amazing!
Also try the other ones the guy has posted - the second link has a woman whispering - and it is so funny some of the comments on that page... seems it was big success for a lot of the guys. One guy went so far as to think of the possibilities if this kind of thing was used in porno movies!
Yoo hoo... yes I mean you! Hello!! I feel like I should re-introduce myself it has been so long since i have written. Yes yes my name is Phly, Gad Phly. Now, will you get me a martini? shaken, not stirred. WHat!! you have no martini? fine,.. get me my new favourite drink, Mai Tai. yummmm.
Anyhow, i realized that I have gotten out of the habit of updating my blog. It really does end up being a habit - update blog or just send an email about the interesting item to some people? these days i have been emailing. But with the following item things are going to change. I read this BBC article about the new bear robots the US military are developing for the transport of casualties in battlefields. The future is coming!! According to the website:
1. Teddy bear face designed to be reassuring (How cool is that!!!) 2. Hydraulic upper body carries up to 227kgs (500lbs) 3. When kneeling tracked "legs" travel over rubble. Switches to wheels on smooth surfaces (ok this was also very cool - i think you can even tell how that would work based on the picture of the legs) 4. Dynamic Balance Behaviour (DBB) technology allows the robot to stand and carry loads upright on its ankles, knees or hips for nearly an hour
yes i am little bit early (less than 12 hours) but Happy Star Wars Day!! It will be the 30th anniversary of the release of the first umm fourth episode.
It is interesting that most people who watch Star Wars for the first time now don't really like it. Check out this guy's article. So what is it that we like about it? The fact that it was the first of its kind? The story line? The special effects?
oh how i want to get laser eye surgery. And when something goes into my head, it doesn't come out easily. I really don't want to wear glasses anymore, it is such a hassle. But to get i need to educate myself. Oh that reminds me of the little clip of Dodgeball that i saw last night, where Ben Stiller claimed "Let me throw some knowledge at you".. he he!! I want to use that in real life!
I am starting a blog for myself to manage all the info I learn at The Eyes of the Fly. Help me out puhleeze if you learn something.
anyway I only know one person in DC who has had laser surgery and it was with a very famous doctor who charged about 5k... that is really expensive. i mean really! So I need to find out more.. does anyone know anything? or about any particular doctor in DC region?
ok I am uploading too many videos today but here are two slightly different acts by Shappi Khorsandi which are pretty funny! The first is her act at the Melbourne Comedy Festival:
Check out the following article about France's new president Sarkozy's wife. "... the recent cliff-hanger of the sporadic absences of Cecilia from her ambitious husband's side."
What a tolerant nation France is with respect to marriage - although I am not sure if this is a good tolerance or not. Is having affairs outside of marriage a good thing for society? In my talks with an ex-housemate, she still questions whether monogamy is a natural behavior or even a good thing. I have always been of the thought that it is, but is it only because this is the accepted behavior in the societies that I lived in? if in France this is the accepted behavior then maybe monogamy is simply behavioral as opposed to an inherently natural act. Maybe it is possible to separate love and sex. Maybe monogamy is good but not the forever kind and we are in fact supposed to have several partners instead of one in our lifetime. It is very interesting when we think of about the whys and how much of the accepted and in fact revered behavior is natural and how much environmental. What do you guys think?
This is a hilarious match between the Greeks and the Germans. As my cousin wrote: I like how when the Greeks score a goal, the commentator says: The Germans are disputing it. Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside. and if you look at the replay, the Greeks were offside, Marx was right! sigh... I wish I knew more about Philosophy and the exact ideas of each of the players!!
I got reminded of firefly today, the wonderful TV show I love and that got canceled after one season by the evil empire of Murdoch, that gray wily orange animal with foxlike tendencies. Did you know Firefly is rated at 15 in the top 25 best scifi TV shows and movies, in the whole wide world? makes me want to go back and watch those last 4 episodes which I have left off watching because I don't want the season to end.
Also seems that Joss Whedon's next project is a scifi thriller called Goners which I hope won't have a lot of horror. Ok maybe it doesn't mean much based on the other movies on the list. However it is interesting that Heroes has had so much support. I saw the first episode and somehow never watched any other other ones. Maybe that was a mistake. But it seems that all the episodes are available free on the internet. You know having access to the old episodes is actually a really smart idea - people can catch up to the season any time they want. Darn... Whedon should be making a new TV show - I would watch it, wouldn't you?
what a potential disaster with my health insurance coverage .... AGAIN!!
So last time i had been told that health insurance open enrollment was between 1-20th May - so I had been on the watch out for the emails in this regard for the past week. But no such email - finally today i dropped by the office and asked about it and was told enrollement ended on friday!! seems that was 12th not the 20th. And enrollment is I believe only once a year? anyway I was about to have a heart attack - it was bad enough as it was when my insurance got canceled last March due to a missed payment - My funding source was changing and they missed one payment. Anyway we managed to fix it by backdating it and then sending it saying it had actually been sent last friday. I found out that I was actually not on the mailing list which yes, can cause the problem. But what a brush with disaster... I am so happy I am once again covered. Well starting July 1st anyway.
I seriously don't understand this open enrollment period of insurance companies in the US - why is it that people can only enroll in insurance at only certain times?? I was once told because of the added costs associated with having an enrollment period all year long - but surely it is not just me that has been a victim of this limited time opportunity?!! In Australia, we had all year long enrollment I believe. It is so much more user-friendly.
I was talking to a health insurance economist on the weekend when I was in the airport (that was one weird conversation!!) and I thought of a fundamental question: the concept of health insurance for all is to a large extent an extension of socialist ideals - so can a strictly capitalistic country have a good health insurance?
A novel that I love is The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. I can't remember if I wrote about it before, but it is a lovely novel about a young white English boy Peekay growing up in South Africa. Courtenay himself was born in South Africa and then immigrated to Australia. The Power of One was his first novel and it won lots of awards - I think they adapted it to film as well. The sequel to The Power of One is called Tandia which was impossible to find in US. I had already read it a long time ago and I really wanted to reread it. Anyway I finally managed to get it on eBay from this Australian bookshop. The book is finally in my hands and i am reading it slowly to enjoy it. [Side Note: I do that sometimes, do something slowly to elongate the pleasure. The funniest one is my Firefly first season which I still haven't seen the last 3 episodes because I don't want them to finish!! Of course it's been so long since I last watched them that I have forgotten what was happening!!! :-P ] Ok back to Tandia. While I was trying to find the book I read more about the life of Courtenay and the critiques of Tandia - I found out that Tandia was not as well received as The Power of One, even though there was a lot of expectations. It seems that almost immediate after The Power of One was published, Courtenay's family found out that his son was diagnosed with AIDS due to a blood transfusion and he died within a year or so. Meanwhile the publishers were pushing Courtenay to meet his deadline for Tandia and so... well that might be a definite reason why Tandia is not up to the same caliber as the earlier novel. So now while I read Tandia I keep thinking about the hell that Courtenay must have been going thru as he was writing Tandia. How can you be creative when something like this is going on? I don't know. As a final aside, Courtenay has a bunch of other books which I have bought maybe 5 of. One of them is called April Fool's Day and is about the son who contracted AIDS and the days leading up to his death. The son died on April Fool's Day. what a day. That is not a good day for anyone.
On my last visit to the library, I saw Life of Pi by Yann Martel on the bookshelves. I picked it up and sat down and reread the last 40 pages of the story - it is such a wonderful book and all the emotions that I went through went I first read it came upon me again. It was so sad and so hopeful and so.. I am not sure. Last time I had decided i would believe the story of the animals but this time, I don't why but I believed the story of the humans. Does that say something about my frame of mind?
I went in search of other books by Martel and I found a collection of 4 short stories entitled The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, which is actually the name of the first novella. I read that story on the plane on Friday and it is another extremely well written, emotional and insightful story. There were a couple of passages which really hit home for me, some expressions which were beautiful to read.
The story is told by a young man in college, whose friend is diagnosed with AIDS. The story describes the last few months of the friend's life that the story teller shares. Here are some passages from the book which I loved:
"He puffs out his story weakly. I feel each breath against my cheek. I have so much energy compared to him, so much good health. It feels arrogant. To atone, I do the equivalent of what people are very tall do: I go about with stooped health."
Another passage describes the act of walking a dog as "giving purpose to aimlessness".
Finally, the last is a long passage which I will write later. It is long and I feel offers so much insight and reflects my feelings. It is interesting that Yann Martel has only three books out. I would really like to read more of his stuff. If you read his bio as well, he seems like a very interesting and well traveled man - he has even been to Iran!! Anyway I really recommend everyone to read his books :-)
