Fly On Wall

Improvising

2011-03-09T12:38:00.002-05:00

For the past 5 months or so, we have been taking improv classes. This all started with our friend Carla introducing us to improv whilst she was visiting earlier in the year. She had taken a class a long time ago whilst in the US and during the most recent visit she took another class and invited us to a performance. It was really fun and let me tell you we really had no idea how HARD improvising is! We took two series of classes, the first one was more games and the second went into long format improvising. I really liked the second series better. At the end of the second series (which makes it last monday) we had a small performance where we performed two types of long form improvisation: The harold (which pairs up two people and it's like flipping channels, we see a bit of scene 1 and then the second pair of people wipe the first pair off the stage and we see some of their scene etc. it wraps around. The second type was the montage which was a series of small scenes made up of random groups of any size.

In the harold, surprisingly A and I got paired up together but I must say we didn't do too bad (we have done a lot worst together)! The suggestion from the crowd was cupcakes and A used that and another suggestion from the crowd (robots) to create scene about me and him being robots trying to eradicate mankind by poisoning people with cupcakes :-P The second set I managed to use my pregnancy to good effect in one scene by pretending to be the pregnant mistress of some guy!

It was really a fun time and we all did a lot better than i expected. Now days A and I really appreciate any improv work!!

Fight On!

2011-03-08T18:29:00.003-05:00

Happy International Woman's Day!

Human planet

2011-03-04T02:41:00.002-05:00

If you have a chance, watch this audio slideshow from BBC. Amazing photos and explanations of each photo.

Funny statuses (... or stati?)

2011-03-03T09:55:00.003-05:00

Last night's facebook browse gave me these two gems of status updates from friends:

"I figured out why I'm fat! The shampoo I use in the shower that runs down my body says "For extra volume and body". I'm going to start using "Dawn" dishwashing soap. It says " Dissolves fat that is otherwise difficult to remove"."

‎"People who have more birthdays live longer"

well then!

2011-03-02T15:48:00.002-05:00

well my attempts of regular blog updates started out well but crashed and burned the moment things turned busy at work. Be gentle with me since the last month has been crazy. At work I had this crazy project which I thought was ending at the end of Jan, so i thought ok great I will work and leave all my pregnancy classes etc for Feb and hope that the baby doesnt come early. Feb arrived, my deadlines were all met successfully and i got more deadlines! %-) I didn't work as hard as Jan, but still... man between work and pregnancy classes at least 2 nights a week and improv classes another night, by the time weekends arrived I was either exhausted or sick! :-)
Anyway so now Feb is gone and all my pregnancy classes are done. I am also on leave from work for the next 2.5 weeks waiting for the baby to make her appearance. There is now a tonne of work in the house that needs to be done. Poor baby wants a place to rest her hat, no? that's where i come in.
Of course this WOULD be where I come in if I wasn't procrastinating so much! :-) I did a marathon shopping session yesterday and today instead of fixing the house I decided I need to bake cookies!
I wanted to use my cookie press and so I made these chocolate press cookies. They were ok. alas I really should get to work. I will put up the recipe for the cookies and some photos. Maybe this blog can also chronicle my cooking adventures. And also my improv adventures. And all other stuff.

Push not kick

2011-01-14T23:40:00.003-05:00

Today, Mini showed me her new trick... many times over! She can now push, instead of kick. I am telling you that's quite a difference and I much prefer the kick than the push. She had two favourite places, possibly where her two extremities are: the first is to my right side, almost below my ribs. The other is about 1.5 inches left of my belly button. On these two spots, Mini has pushed and pushed, for prolonged amounts of time. A couple of times, I decided to push her back to see what would happen. Well of course my pushing her, pushed her away from where she was so i was no longer lopsided but the cheeky girl then came back with a vengeance and pushed at the same spot again!

Domestic Zen

2011-01-10T14:38:00.003-05:00

My friendship with lovely CD has had two definite benefits, both of which are of domestic nature.
The first is that I have started knitting. I remember I used to knit and crochet with my grandmother when I was kid. She was a tailor when younger and when we were younger a lot of our clothes were sewed or knitted or etc by my mother and grandmother. It was part necessity, part of pleasure but man, I look back at my clothes and am impressed!

My grandmother was also the best cook in the world. No exaggeration! :-) My mum does a pretty good job of following her goodness closely, however (and unfortunately) I have not been able to continue the line. But this is related to the second benefit of my friendship with CD. I have been baking a lot more!!
For Xmas we had a cookie baking session where I made Rosettes which is the same as shirini panjerei in Persian.
You simply need some rosette irons and a cooking thermometer.
I also learned how to use cookie press and (didn't make but ate) a whole bunch of yummy sugar cookies. Cookie presses make such goodlooking cookies! In fact both these cookies have a very high impress-effort ratio. Maximize that utility function and you are gold.

I was also introduced to chocolate crinkles which are easy and delicious. The other plus is that they look pretty good!

Lets end this post with a bit of philosophical soul searching. Since you bake cookies, why aren't they called bakies instead of cookies?
[I heard this from someone but I can't remember who so I can't give them their due credit.]

and the second gem which I attribute to Jessica B is that STRESSED spelled backwards is DESSERTS.

Think about it.

Home Stretch

2011-01-09T15:12:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow our 30th week of pregnancy is going to finish and we will officially be starting the 31st. The fact that there is now a 3 as the second digit of my decimal gestational age scares the crap out of me. In theory, the baby will be considered full term in one and a half month. Let the freak out begin.
Maybe I should count using the fetal age method which would mean the baby is still 28 weeks which has no mention of 3.
Repeating a curse that I learnt during the New Year period, God damn shit. :-P

ok lets be serious. No even serious I am starting to freak out.
ok forget the seriousness. Lets put the freak out on the side.

Our class schedule for the following months is crazy. We had a late pregnancy class last week which was about 2 hours and covered at a high level what goes on during labor and delivery and aftermath. (Did you know the baby's first poo is a black tar mess which is really sticky and hard to clean? lovely.)
There was an ahhhh moment or two in there especially when they talked about the hospitals preference for skin to skin contact for the baby and mother/father during the first couple of days, esp the first couple of hours. How gorgeous is the thought of having a naked lump of breathing baby on your chest? (as long as the tar poo is kept away!) (Did you know that this type of skin to skin care is becoming more prevalent and is called kangaroo care? it was invented in Bogota, Colombia http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/the-human-incubator/). Oh and another interesting thing is that it seems the mother's body temperature can adjust itself so that the baby is never overheated however the father doesn't have such a feedback loop and so the baby can overheat and so fathers if your kiddo starts sweating, you know why.

We also have a breastfeeding class (multiple people have told me how hard breastfeeding is, argh!!) and 3 childbirth classes and a new born care class. All petty much in Feb. So much!!

Meanwhile we are taking improv classes once a week, we have a dance class for Feb and I have two huge work deadlines by end of Jan.

My freak out makes more sense huh!

so you thought...

2011-01-07T21:40:00.004-05:00

you have an uncommon name? What do you say about this!!

Do I need to say more?!!

On a more serious note, I love the following song (mostly the first half):

One of the comments in youtube has the following translation:

ZANKO11 "Rough translation: 0:0-3:50 Being brotherless has killed me not the fire of bullets If your brother dies your sword will be blunt A father, without a son a sister, without a brother make all hearts sigh Sky is so dark, so dark oh God let no kafir see 2 brothers dying My pains are so heavy the cure for my heart is in Lorestan people, my pains cannot be told my legs are so weak and cannot walk the road"

29 weeks!

2011-01-03T13:04:00.002-05:00

oh btw I have now finished my 29th week of pregnancy! woweee! time flies! :-)

One other funny thing that has been happening has to do with my baby shower. Several people have come and asked me when i am holding my baby shower and I don't know how to tell them that generally other people hold showers for the pregnant person! I don't want to have a party and ask people to buy me things! sigh!

Dear Abby, what do I do with this situation?!! :-P

Blood

2011-01-03T12:45:00.002-05:00

This pregnancy has turned out very different to what I expected ...not that I really knew what I expected. I don't think I had really thought about it, more about when a baby was here and the baby growing up. I did think experiencing a baby inside me would be an extra-ordinary thing but didn't really appreciate how extraordinary (notice the difference between the spellings? it's intentional!)

But it really has been and I have been loving it and loving the little one kicking. Oh that's another thing, people wonder how they can make their mini stop kicking and I am more along the lines of oh how can i make mini kick me more? :-P Am I a masochist? quite possibly! but it's really cool knowing the baby is alive and kicking and moving inside you :-)

So where was I going with this post? right, blood. My blood in particular.

I have been pretty healthy so far in my pregnancy and I haven't had to do the dreaded glucose test where supposedly they give you a high sugar drink and take your blood sample before and one hour after and they see how you are absorbing that sugar. This will indicate if you have gestational diabetes.

Anyhow on various pregnancy forums which I have been perusing, the glucose test is supposedly this horror of a test, where everyone dreads it and the sugary drink that you have to take. People throw it up, throw it around and generally want to throw it.

Seriously I think people over react so much! I had to do mine yesterday (I started it, I spilt the drink when I tried to take a phone call and wham! I have to take it again because it is very important to be precise with the amount of sugar in your blood. arrghh!). Anyway the drink was a sugary orange which was fine. Just like any soft drink. I didn't love it, I wouldn't drink it if it was optional but it was fine.

It makes me wonder about all these people!

Then again, every pregnancy is different and some people have a lot of problems with their pregnancies... but sometimes I think people also use it as an excuse!

A New Hope

2010-12-25T16:08:00.002-05:00

A new hope might be a slight exaggeration, but it's Christmas day which means we are very close to turning the 0 at the end of 2010 to 1 and I really really need to get back to my blogging. Why? because so many interesting things are happening to me and I need a way of keeping track of everything.

So here is to a new hope that I will keep up my blogging at the very least in this coming year.

I will make this post short but let me just say what the most interesting thing that has happened to me is: it is a tiny life inside me that this morning has been kicking me silly. I wonder if I am blue on the inside! A little teeny weeny girl whom I can't wait to meet! and I know she is going to change my life as I know it. I just hope that she is gentle with me :-)

Spirit

2010-02-02T11:18:00.003-05:00

On Jan 26th, 2274 Mars days into the mission, NASA declared Spirit a "stationary research station" , expected to stay operational for several more months until a dust buildup on its solar panels forces a final shutdown.

This is such a sad cartoon. It reminds me of Laika, the first dog that was sent into space. From wiki: "Laika died four days after launch from overheating, possibly due to a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload. The true cause and time of her death was not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out, or (as the Soviets initially insisted) she was euthanised prior to oxygen depletion. "

random

2010-02-02T11:03:00.005-05:00

Here are some random thoughts and things I have been doing:

- we need to get a dining set, so I have been searching Craig's List. How did I get pulled into Craig's List for the first time? because the first night I had a quick look at it (just to see what's going on) I saw the perfect table and chair and for a great price. I emailed them a couple of times and got no reply. Alas I have been waiting for a similar deal to pop up ever since.

However I am starting to lose patience as I see the same stuff (which I am not interested in) be re-listed over and over and over again.

- was frustrated by what I perceive as a woman's jealousy by my friendship with her husband (who is a good friend of mine). Of course note the word "perceive" because it can always be my imagination and she might just not like me as person... what!! never! :-P

- had a fabulous time this weekend catching up with a high school friend of mine (and his fiance) whom I hadn't seen in more than 10 years. Lovely guy. We drank and were merry. It seems I can get drunk very fast. I believe I had 1.5 glasses of white wine and I was happy and tipsy. Maybe it was superwine with super alcohol level.

Next Adventure: Baja!

2010-01-28T16:43:00.003-05:00

In April, one of my loveliest friends is coming a-visiting and I am oh so very excited. We are also planning on going to Baja, Mexico with a tour group on a 9-day adventure and man oh man, the excitement is building. We have to book the ticket etc but we have a new adventure to look forward to!

Here is the planned bus tour: (ignore the 15-day addition)

Obsessed anyone?

2010-01-25T18:28:00.002-05:00

I have developed an obsession: Apple and the upcoming keynote. Are they or are they not? Is it or is it not?

I need to know what's going on, what they are producing, how I am going to be living my life vicariously through others. Please Mr Jobs, won't you tell me how?

Since no one tells me anything, I scan macrumors.com at least once a day, read fakesteve and go through the tech news of google.

And it seems I am not the only one, because last time I checked (admittedly a couple of days ago) the top 6 tech news of the day were Apple, Apple, Apple.

Please Mr Jobs, won't you tell us all how to be interfacing our lives with technology?

For, lets face it, Apple doesn't make a product, they "they made a narrative. A statement about how technology should interface with a life."

So yes I am slightly obsessed with this new product that seems to be a cloud of gossip and not one solid fact. But oh that cloud is so shiny and sparkly.

Tell me, are you obsessed? ;-)

Catching up and The Audition

2010-01-25T16:32:00.002-05:00

There is a bunch of news bits over the last couple of weeks that I wanted to share with everyone (all 2.5 people who read the blog :-P) I will post them as time and memory permit.

About 10 days ago, one of the nights when I came home late and brain dead and turned the TV on and sat in front of it like a zombie, I was nicely surprised by a fabulous documentary called The Audition on PBS that...

"looks at the intense pressures young opera singers face as they struggle to succeed in one of the most difficult professions in the performing arts. The feature-length documentary takes you behind the scenes at the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions, where each year thousands of hopefuls compete for a cash prize, the chance to sing on the Met stage–and the opportunity to launch a major operatic career."

It was like a grown up, matured, interesting and talented American Idol (no offense intended since I enjoy watching AI :-). The voices were absolutely heavenly and the process of performing at the level of the MET was fascinating. If you like opera voices and want to learn how technical these performances are and how many different aspects there are to a performance, well you'll just have to watch this documentary :-)

Oh and the saddest part of all was the ending credits where one of the contestants who we learn about and learn to love is said to have passed away after a one year fight against cancer. That was just really sad. It always surprises me when any life but especially one with so much talent and vivacity and joy, is extinguished.

It's time...

2010-01-25T15:40:00.003-05:00

... to once again open the two-way portal into the blogosphere. My theory is that updating my blog will allow me some leeway in emailing (or more to the point) not emailing.

You see I've been pretty darn busy at work the last couple of weeks with a bunch of deliverables and my emailing dropped down to abysmal numbers. New lows I tells you. I had disappeared.

Meanwhile I was checking other people's blogs to see what was going on with them. I checked out FB once in a while, saw statuses and photos, saw little new-borns become bigger and cuter and like sand through the hour glass... ahem. So I felt kind of up to date but they thought I had "unfriended" them (to quote a lovely friend! :-D

So here I am.

Blogging.

so... wassup!

I Must Go Home to Iran Again

2009-07-08T14:49:00.002-04:00

I really liked this article from NY Times, Published: July 3, 2009

I Must Go Home to Iran Again

by Marjan Satrapi, the author of the graphic novels Perspolis etc.

PARIS — Six years ago, I went to listen to a man, whom I will not name, in a café in Paris.

He said it had been 24 years since he had been back to Iran, that he had to leave right after the revolution of 1979 for political reasons.

He talked of many things, and he ended by saying: “Once you leave your homeland, you can live anywhere, but I refuse to die anywhere other than Iran — or else my life will have had no meaning.”

His statement touched me very deeply. I’ve thought about what he said, not just understanding him intellectually but feeling his meaning with all my heart. I, too, was convinced that I must die nowhere other than in my country, Iran, or else my life will also be meaningless.

At the time I heard this man speak, it had already been four years since I had been home.

Yes, I call Iran home because no matter how long I live in France, and despite the fact that I feel also French after all these years, to me the word “home” has only one meaning: Iran.

I suppose it’s that way for everyone: Home is the place where one is born and raised.

No matter how much I am in love with Paris and its indescribable beauty, Tehran with all its ugliness will in my eyes forever be the “bride” of all cities around the world.

It’s a question of geography, of the smell of the rain, of the things we know without ever having to think why we know them.

It’s a question of the Alborz Mountains protecting my town. Where are they? Who will protect me now?

It’s a question of the unbearable smell of pollution, a smell I know so well.

It’s a question of knowing that the blue of the sky is not the same everywhere, nor does the sun shine the same way in every place.

It’s a question of wanting to be able to walk under my own blue sky, of wanting my own sunshine to caress my back.

At the time I heard that man speak it had already been four years since I had been home. Today it has been more than 10 years. To be precise, 10 years, six months and three days.

During all that time, I believed I would live a few more decades without ever being able to walk in my mountains. But 18 days ago, June 12, 2009, something happened, something I never believed I would see in my lifetime: Iranians, crowding into an extremely tiny space of democracy, usually left just large enough for them to vote for a president whom the Guardian Council had already approved, truly voted.

The question much of the media asked before the election was: “Are Iranians ready for democracy?”

“YES!” came the answer, loud and oh, so clear.

With a voter turnout of 85 percent, they started to dream that change was possible.

They started to believe “Yes they can,” too.

It’s likely needless to remind you that this was not the first time Iranians showed how much they love freedom. Look only at the 20th century: They launched the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 (the first in Asia); nationalized the oil industry in 1951 (the first Middle Eastern country to do so); mounted the revolution of 1979; and engineered the student revolt of 1999. Which brings us to now, and that deafening cry for democracy.

Almost 20 years ago, when I started studying art in Tehran, the very idea of “politics” was so frightening that we didn’t even dare think about it. To talk about it? Beyond belief!

To demonstrate in the streets against the president? Surreal!

Criticize the supreme leader? Apocalyptic!

Shouting “Down with Khamenei”? Death!

Death, torture and prison are part of daily life for the youth of Iran. They are not like us, my friends and I at their age; they are not scared. They are not what we were.

They hold hands and scream: “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! We are together!”

They understand that no one will give them their rights; they must go get them.

They understand that unlike the generation before them — my generation, for whom the dream was to leave Iran — the real dream is not to leave Iran but to fight for it, to free it, to love it and to reconstruct it.

They hold hands and scream: “We will fight! We will die! But we won’t be humiliated!”

They went out knowing that going to each demonstration meant signing their death warrants.

Today I read somewhere that “the velvet revolution” of Iran became the “velvet coup,” with a little note of irony, but let me tell you something: This generation, with its hopes, dreams, anger and revolt, has forever changed the course of history. Nothing is going to be the same.

From now on, nobody will judge Iranians by their so-called elected president.

From now on, Iranians are fearless. They have regained their self-confidence.

Despite all the dangers they said NO!

And I’m convinced this is just the beginning.

From now on, I will always say: Once you leave your homeland, you can live anywhere. But I refuse to only die in Iran. I will one day live in Iran...or else my life will have had no meaning.

MARJANE SATRAPI is a writer and filmmaker whose works include the book and film “Persepolis.” Her most recent graphic novel is “Chicken With Plums.”

Statement by a group of Iranian bloggers about the Presidential elections and the subsequent events

2009-06-26T14:05:00.001-04:00

1) We, a group of Iranian bloggers, strongly condemn the violent and repressive confrontation of Iranian government against Iranian people's legitimate and peaceful demonstrations and ask government officials to comply with Article 27 of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Constitution which emphasizes "Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam."
2) We consider the violations in the presidential elections, and their sad consequences a big blow to the democratic principles of the Islamic Republic regime, and observing the mounting evidence of fraud presented by the candidates and others, we believe that election fraud is obvious and we ask for a new election.
3) Actions such as deporting foreign reporters, arresting local journalists, censorship of the news and misrepresenting the facts, cutting off the SMS network and filtering of the internet cannot silence the voices of Iranian people as no darkness and suffocation can go on forever. We invite the Iranian government to honest and friendly interaction with its people and we hope to witness the narrowing of the huge gap between people and the government.

A part of the large community of Iranian bloggers
June 26, 2009
-----------------------------------------
Dear reader,
If you are a blogger, please post this in your blog too. We might have differences in our views towards this crisis, but we can stay united on condemning the violence and valuing the lives of our people. Let's have our voices heard. (The complete bilingual version)
Thank you.

Engineer @ Work

2009-06-26T12:49:00.003-04:00

Keep back, keep back.

This engineer is at work...

chaos? check.

mayhem? check.

One of the crazy things that happened on our trip to PA last week was that our GPS started acting crazy and saying that it wasn't charging up. So as we were crossing NYC, A and I kept turning the GPS off in hopes of preserving some battery life.

Anyhow so yesterday i started wondering why the GPS was not working and I thought the problem must be in the adaptor. So I was playing around with the prongs and one of the side prongs fell out! I put it back in the way i thought it would go in but nothing happened... so i was thinking hmmm i wonder...

next thing i realize is that my clock display was no longer working!

Sooo.. I am thinking that I either busted a fuse (hopefully!!) or shorted that section of the electric circuit in the car.

OMG for 2 reasons:

(1) I broke the car

(2) No GPS!!!

I think (2) is almost a catastrophe for me!!

Please stop this engineer from "helping out" again!

Stoned in circles

2009-06-25T20:22:00.004-04:00

Is it wrong of me to find the following story really funny? Would PETA hate me? :-P

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said. (full story)

I wonder what the relationship between circles and being high is.

Meanwhile, the King of Pop has passed away :-(

Know thy self

2009-06-25T01:29:00.004-04:00

I had a bit of a shock the other day---I was not the O blood type that I had always assumed! You see, I am pretty average in most things, so it was but natural for me to presume i also had the most common blood type. But no it seems I actually have a pretty rare blood type. FSM help me if I need a blood transfusion!
So anyway i started reading up about blood types and I learned some pretty cool stuff.
- The distribution of blood types is dependent on geography and the difference in distribution is pretty large. For example, [see wiki page]

Country	O+	A+	B+	AB+	O−	A−	B−	AB−
Aust.	40%	31%	8%	2%	9%	7%	2%	1%
Turkey	29.8%	37.8%	14.2%	7.2%	3.9%	4.7%	1.6%	0.8%
Saudi Arabia	48%	24%	17%	4%	4%	2%	1%	0.23%
USA	37.4%	35.7%	8.5%	3.4%	6.6%	6.3%	1.5%	0.6%

- That graph on top shows who can donate blood to whom. The universal donor is O- (so best blood type if you are selfless) but AB+ is universal recipients (best blood type if you are selfish :-P)

- Scientists have found a way of converting blood types A, B, and AB to O!
- An aussie girl's blood type changed upon a liver transplant!
Know any other interesting facts about blood? :-)

Ume ume yum yum yum

2009-06-24T16:11:00.002-04:00

Last weekend I was introduced to the yummiest and most interesting candy ever -- Ume Candy from Nipon!
Ume is plum in japanese i believe and the candy is this dried ume in a container of sugar candy that tastes like cotton candy. The taste is almost like tamarind but not quite.

It is my new mission to find where i can get me some.

Young

2009-06-23T16:33:00.002-04:00

I have a tendency to really connect with kids, probably more so teenagers. I love hanging out with them and talking to them. I feel like I am one of them. I can act their age. It's liberating and oh so natural for me.
Last weekend, I met two girls, probably around 13 and 15. I seriously connected with them and i hope I will keep in contact with them and see them again. A while ago (maybe a year or so ago), at a friend's house, I met her younger cousin (again around that age) and I didnt want to let her ago.

I wonder what these kids think when faced with someone like me.. the are probably thinking, man this really uncool ADULT (omg insults!) won't leave them alone!!
HA!
if only they knew :-P

Intolerable Cruelty

2009-06-23T14:41:00.004-04:00

"We have seen courageous women stand up to brutality and threats, and we have experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets. While this loss is raw and painful, we also know this: those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history."

- Obama

enlightening

2009-06-22T18:21:00.002-04:00

When you first join a new team, all the dynamics of the team members, the politics, the agendas etc. are hidden. You need to walk on your tippie toes for a while, keep looking around and making sure everyone is satisfied enough, happy enough.... until things begin to clear up and you realize who the players are, and how they play.

Today I had a very interesting conversation which shed some light onto some of these dynamics. I am learning the rules.

It's the wild wild west out there!

traffic story

2009-06-20T13:13:00.002-04:00

A and I had did an illegal u-turn last night and the police caught us. The nice policeman asked Alvaro if he knew that u-turns over there were illegal and Alvaro replied " yes but the GPS told me to do a u-turn!"
Good reply!
surprisingly we got off with a warning.

sleeping story

2009-06-20T12:32:00.003-04:00

A and I caught an overnight flight last night for the wedding reception of JA<3N - woo hoo! We ended up getting two middle seats so and it was so hard to get into a good position for the night. Anyway neither of us got much sleep on the way over. We flew into JFK in NYC and were planning on driving from there to east Pennsylvania. We thought to drive thru Manhattan, have lunch before getting to PA for the reception on sat night. As we started driving to Manhattan, the traffic around us got worst and worst. Since we were both tired we decided to skip Manhattan and drive around through Brighton Beach and have breakfast there and continue past to PA. Anyhow by the time we got to Brighton Beach, we were both so tired we ended up parking the car at the side of the road and locked the car and leaned our seats all the way back and took a snooozzzzzzzz..... for 1.5 hours!! when we woke up, the sun was up, the air was hot and stuffy in the car and there were people walking all around us! :-P ok maybe they weren't peering inside the car and there were on the side walk so not exactly next to us, but it was so funny! Sleep in the car? ha! been there, done that... now! ;-) We woke up just in time for lunch. Chevere!

Starting 3...2...1

2009-06-20T12:24:00.002-04:00

Funny things are happening in my life and I am forgetting them!
I have to start writing them down, else they will be gone for eternity.
and that would not be good.
So I hereby renew my blogging efforts.

Clementine flourless cake

2009-04-24T17:55:00.003-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, my cousin cooked the yummiest clementine cake eva. I found the receipe today and may I recommend it to you? :-)

375g clementines (about 4-5)
6 eggs
225g sugar
250g ground almonds
1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder

1 - put clementines in a pan with cold water and bring to boil. Cook for 2 hours. Drain and let cool slightly. Cut clementines in half and take out the seeds. Puree them with skin.
2 - Preheat oven to 190C (375F)
3 - Whisk eggs. Add sugar, almonds and baking powder and mix well. Add in the clementine puree and mix.
4 - Pour into a 21cm buttered and floured cake pan and bake (on the middle rack) for approx 40 mins. Then cover with foil and bake for another 20 mins.

Then cut yourself a piece and enjoy!
Yum!
Btw, this seems to be a recipe by Nigella Lawson and seems to be very famous. Just try searching for it!

Rachel The Movie

2009-04-24T15:55:00.004-04:00

Last night I watched the movie Rachel Getting Married and I loved it so much. Seriously I think I was crying through half the movie (do I seem to be crying a lot recently??)
The movie is about a young girl Kym leaving rehab for a couple of days to go home and attend her sister's (Rachel) wedding, which is this beautiful concoction of music. I thought the movie was so heartfelt and beautifully filmed, focusing mainly on the relationship between the sisters. There were these scenes of Kym feeling so much pressure and stress, her face is just about to shatter. In between the story which covered the dysfunctional family and their past tragedies, there are these long wedding scenes, the dancing and the toasts and the singing, which wonderfully builds the atmosphere and also the secondary characters. This, along with the rest of the movie which primarily follows Kym, makes the movie nice and balanced. You end up loving both sisters and appreciate their differences and at the end of it, what came out of the movie was the strength of sisterly love.
One of my favourite movies ever.
Why did it only get 7.1 in imdb???

Paris Dreams with a Stranger

2009-04-23T13:51:00.000-04:00

Grace Jones - Strange
(complements of AACM)

Strange I've seen that face before
Seen him hanging round my door
Like a hawk stealing for the pray
Like the night waiting for the day

TLC

2009-04-22T20:33:00.000-04:00

I've been in CanadaLand the past week or so, being a kid again, not doing anything and watching Tv, while being spoilt by mi madre :-) I am usually a CNN fan since I don't have it at home but what i like to watch in the mornings is the show What Not to Wear. It's kind of fun because you see people who (you hope) are worst dressed than you and then you learn what they should wear etc. This channel also has a lot of baby shows. Straight after the WNTW show, there is a Baby Story show which is like a documentary of a couple who are pregnant and they go through the birth etc. Oh My... did that get my clock ticking. The whole baby thing is so amazing. Imagine being able to bring to life another little human being - Amazing no? It is one of the most wonderous things in the world. And then a little kid belongs to you and they will grow up. It's amazing amazing.

A living nightmare.... Action!

2009-04-19T09:18:00.002-04:00

Last night I had a really stressful and scary dream. Ajax and I lived in a small unit in a motel like building where we were attending a summer school of some kind. I started thinking that someone was stalking me. On multiple occasions, there was someone in a car just watching the house. One day I came home and realized someone had been through the house. This happened again. The guy watching the house was still watching.I think they had taken something small from the bedroom. One night when Ajax was away, I realized that someone was again watching the house but there were two people in the car. I turned off all the lights but then i decided to come back and make sure all the windows are closed. I noticed one which had been used by the bad people to come in. There was another window that was stuck and refused to close. Meanwhile I was so scared you wouldn't believe. One of the bad guys (the third person which turned out to be a girl) came towards the house and was looking in thru the windows and calling out to me. I kept trying to turn off lights but there was always one light which was on so they could see me. Finally I though I had closed eveything and decided to go to bed (although i was too scared to sleep). Just as I was sleeping, I realized they were at it again so i decided to call 911 but the home phone kept dialing wrong and cell phone's battery was exhausted. I was sure that the stalkers had done something to mess up with my systems. As I am scrambling to use attach my cell phone to the charger and dial 911 -- this one works --- the door opened and all these zombies/people attacked. I never managed to tell the operator what was wrong but i started screaming and i think i half fainted. The operator was speaking calmly and started talking to the attackers who then decided not to attack, esp since they seemed to be actors! It turned out that this whole thing had been a movie production and I was the star except they wanted me to have honest reactions so they decided not to tell me and just let me go thru all, giving real emotion. Afterwards I got totally pissed off because i was so scared and so horrified. I wouldn't authorize them to use my pictures so their whole endeavour was wasted but they kept trying to get me to change my minds.

What a dream huh. No a nightmare becuase i was so scared through it. A dream in three acts: stalk, attack, the next day. I know i am missing a lot of details of the dream but I am pretty impressed i remember this much and in such detail.
Crazy.

A Tale of Much Woe

2009-04-17T18:34:00.003-04:00

I have had an interesting time applying for jobs since my graduation. Almost immediately when i started my application process, I found a very interesting position with a good company. Over a short period, I had a number of interviews and then I was told the team liked me and were going to make me an offer but they had to get approval. Since I liked the team and seemed everything was working out I stopped applying and kept myself busy with work. A month later i was still waiting in limbo with no end in sight. I had a crisis period before I started applying again, this time like crazy. As days passed, my range of what I considered suitable jobs increased and increased. It's quite interesting when one day you are ignoring a job because you think that is not suitable but then the next day when you don't see any new open positions, you go back and say well, maybe that first position wasn't that bad!
Anyhow, so currently I have another offer waiting to happen -- a pretty good one too. iYay for me! I haven't signed anything yet but it looks much more promising. The funny thing is that i am still looking at the job websites every morning and applying. Just now I organized another interview for a job which is not that interesting but heck... I can't seem to say no. Now it's like a compulsion, a game, where I apply just to see how it goes. It has been really interesting going through the interviews as well. The technical questions are kind of fun now. Maybe I am only thinking that because I have the potential offer now. I remember when I first started the process I was really afraid. It was the first time I was going thru these technical interviews where over the course of a day, you meet with 10 people one by one. But I've been learning how to prepare.
Anyway so my tale is not so much woe -- atleast I am hoping it won't be.
To Be Continued.

Hu1u for n0n-US residents

2009-04-13T11:54:00.003-04:00

If you want to watch Hulu or one of the US TV network's webcontent (which is usually solely for US residents) and have never been able to because it requires you to be watching in the US... this guide is for you.
How to bypass the country check at South Park Studios and in other places.

1. Get Firefox.
2. Download & Install "Modify-Headers"
3. Go to Tools -> Modify Headers
4. Click Configuration and check Always On: Enable ... and Open Modify Headers ....
5. At the top select "Add" from the drop down list. Type in X-Forwarded-For in the field to the left of the drop down list and 12.13.14.15 in the other one. Nvm the third field
6. Press "Add" and select your new lines and press Enable/disable if it isn't already enabled.
7. ????
8. Profit and watch South Park.

If someone can confirm that this works, it would be great.

Update: ok this doesn't seem to work for Hulu but it did work for comedy central. For Hulu, seems there are these VPN solutions.

Remember Me

2009-04-12T12:17:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I was listening to This American Life on NPR which is a collection of stories and essays and field recordings. It's really interesting and thought provoking.
There was one particular story which I thought was so beautifully told and powerful and sad.
David Wilcox tells the story of how his mother, who was dying of lung cancer, made a short videotape for his sister, who is severely developmentally disabled. She hoped the tape would become a daily part of her daughter's life, like the other music and movies she liked to play, that she would watch it and remember her mother. But she also knew her daughter might never even see it.
If you get the chance, go to the website and listen to the podcast or online.

Epiphany

2009-04-02T14:00:00.002-04:00

Today Ajax and I played a demo of Resident Evil 5. My second coop first person shooter game.
2 reasons why I didn't like RE5.
(1) too gruesome! I don't like so much gore and blatant violence. Guns is one thing, but axes and knives are totally different.
(2) I prefer distanced fighting. It is stressful (I don't know if that is the right word) for zombies to physically attack you.
oh and the controls seriously sucked! The controls of resistance are so much better!
The other girl in my clan also didn't like RE5 because she felt it was too stressful.

Dare I generalize the above two reasons for all female gamers?

Speaking of luck...

2009-04-01T13:08:00.003-04:00

My husband is a very lucky, LUCKY man.
He managed to hook his wife on a game.
Now she cajoles him into playing one more game.
Last night:

husband: I am so sleepy. I am going to sleep.
me: no just one more game. We have a good group going.
husband: no no I am really sleepy.
me: Just one more game.
husband: no...
me: puh-leaze! I'll owe you one...

That man is a lucky lucky man. I thought women were the ones that tried to change men once they got them in a relationship. Alas he is the true Pied Piper in our relationship.

Test of Luck

2009-03-26T14:33:00.002-04:00

This story on BBC is a true testament to serious bad luck or good luck! or both!
This guy survived both atomic bombs in WW2. He is from Nagasaki but was in Hiroshima on business the day it was hit. So he survived H and then went back to N to have to survive N!!
If you think about it for a sec, it blows your mind.
Atlanta and I were talking about this and trying to come up with similarly bad lucked scenarios. He mentioned during 9/11, escaping one tower to go into the other one after the first is hit.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Are my examples in bad taste? Possibly. At least when i put up this story in facebook, someone wrote me immediately saying there are people who find both topics offensive. But why? How would either the real story or my silly analogy offend anyone? The stories are supposed to have good endings. and they are devastating disasters which had many victims, but does that mean we cannot talk about them at all? Isn't talking about these things better because they keep them more alive in mind?
So although I disagreed with the email that I received, I still took down the story and instead i put it up here. But I am interested in what people think about this issue.
Or if you have any other funny (but sad) analogies!

Noruz mobarak!

2009-03-24T00:30:00.003-04:00

Last friday morning (USA time), all Iranians celebrated Noruz, their new year! So...

HAPPY NORUZ!
or (now in Farsi)
NORUZ MOBARAK!

(No=New, Ruz=Day ==> Noruz = new day)

We are now in the year 1388. Yay!

(the actual calender details are really interesting like the fact that the first 6 months have 31 days and the last 6 have 30 days, last month can change by one day if it is a leap year. The day distribution is due to the fact that the sun moves slightly more slowly along the ecliptic in the northern spring and summer than in the northern autumn and winter)

Now I am going to give you all a history lesson. Gather around my little lambs and let me tell you all a story...

Noruz goes all the way back to the Achaemenid era (founded by Cyrus the Great) and was one of the important festivals of the Zorasterians (which was founded in that era).
In harmony with rebirth of nature, Noruz always begins on the first day of spring; more precisely, it is celebrated on the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day. So the precise time of Noruz varies form year to year, depending on where you are on the planet, though it is somewhere in the time window of 21st of March, plus or minus a day.
I don't know any other new year which is so precise, do you?

Some of the activities during Noruz are spring cleaning, buying new cloths, painting eggs, family reunion, giving presents, visiting neighbors and friends and celebrating by having a picnic on the 13th day of Spring.
Just like the xmas tree and the nativity scenes for christmas, Iranians have a Noruz spread, called the haftsin (haft=7, sin=the sound of the letter 's'==> haftsin=the 7 's's) where families gather around as the new year rings in.
Haftsin consists of a spread with 7 items, all starting with the letter 's'. Haftsin represents renewal, happiness, wealth, good health, and other things which are desired for the new year. The items on the haftsin are:

sabzeh - wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish - symbolizing rebirth
samanu - a sweet pudding made from wheat germ - symbolizing affluence
senjed - the dried fruit of the oleaster tree - symbolizing love
seer - garlic - symbolizing medicine
seeb - apples - symbolizing beauty and health
somaq - sumac berries - symbolizing (the color of) sunrise
serkeh - vinegar - symbolizing age and patience

There are other optional items such as coins (sekkeh) representing wealth, candles representing enlightenment and happiness and mirror representing cleanness and honesty. Oh and then there is the gold fish which represents life within life and is the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I had my best Noruz in a long time, a real noruz. It had been a long time since I gathered with my mum and uncles and aunts and cousins to celebrate Noruz. We didnt end up having the hafsin which kind of sucked but hey, it was the best celebration in recent history. Next year my aim is the whole family and a haftsin. :-D

Addiction

2009-03-11T11:53:00.003-04:00

Dear Diary,
they say the first step towards fighting an addiction is to recognize that there is a problem.
So here I am, proclaiming that yes I do have an addiction.
Every day, I get through my day with thought of the coming night when I sit on my IKEA couch in front of the Samsung TV, turn on the PS3 and first check which of my clan members in online and what they are playing, and then turning on the game Resistance: Fall of Man. Dear diary, I play and my heart pounds and my muscles are tense and i physically lean back and forth as I try to dodge software bullets. I usually suck, I shout out profanities to the heavens and the character(s) of the game who is pwning me and then in the end I am usually last on that list of rankings. But oh the rush, the energy, the adrenaline.
I cannot turn off my TV till late, very late. I go to bed and when i close my eyes, I dream of the light trail left off by those damn snipers that get me out of the blues.
Dear diary, I recognize that I have a problem, but really, do I have to do anything about it?
Love,
xoxo

Attack Dog

2009-03-09T03:54:00.002-04:00

KK2

2009-02-27T16:29:00.003-05:00

It seems they are making a new karate kid movie, with the kid being played by Will Smith's son. Nothing good can come of that. Last night before going to my karate class, i decided to have a quick watch of the original karate kid 2. This is when mister miagi goes to japan to face his old enemy and of course little karate kid joins him to offer support. Now I generally really like these kind of movies, love me some Rocky action, mighty ducks, you know sport related movies. These days throw in a bit of marshal arts and Bob's your uncle. But seriously, this movie is bad. Setting bad, acting VERY bad, story pretty bad, Japanese people speaking english BAD. The blossoming love between the kid (whose name i obviously don't recall) and the japanese babe.. bad. Everything bad. so so bad.
and yet I am wondering what happens in Karate kid 3. :-P

ps. one of the biggest problems people tell me about japan is that the society is very male dominated and women are to a large extent in the background. Now i don't know how true this is in reality, but it was surely true in KK2 and you know if it is in the movies, it MUST be true right? :-P

The Future is here

2009-02-27T16:09:00.003-05:00

This article about iPhone's very slow (almost negative!) adoption in Japan is really fascinating. Basically it says that the iPhone is eons behind all the other phones in Japan, it is clunky and has too few applications. This being the phone that is revered in (world-minus-Japan). Seems in Japan people replace their home PCs with phone/mobile devices and most phones feature really good cameras and get this, TV tuners. How cool is that!! Basically the fact that iPhone relies on a home computer to sync media and get updates completely misses the point.
The future is here, only in Japan :-) I wish I could click my heels three times and show up there...now! Really good article.

thursday morning

2009-02-26T11:34:00.002-05:00

I read the following line on a friend's mail signature: (Hafez is perhaps one of the couple of most famous Persian poets.)
Even after all this time The sun never says to the earth, "You owe Me." Look what happens with A love like that, It lights the Whole Sky. - Hafez

Meanwhile, I just heard on the news that a man who had donated his kidney to his wife, and who then wanted his kidney back once he found out she was cheating on him, is told his claim is being rejected. The whole thing is weird and sad.

Adjustable Eyeglasses at $1

2009-02-25T02:26:00.002-05:00

Designer Focuses on Marketing Adjustable Eyeglasses at $1 a Pair: Scientific American
I always love all these inventions which make things available for the masses. OLPC for another.

Chemical Party!

2009-02-24T16:06:00.005-05:00

From Gillen's blog. Which element do you want to be?
I am thinking of one of the alkali metals, as " They are soft shiny metals that usually combine with group VIIA nonmetals in chemical compounds in a 1:1 ratio."
i like the 1:1 ratio thing and who doesn't want to be soft and shiny :-P

If you hardly remember your chemistry, here is a quick list of properties. I am also hoping my chemical brothers and sisters will throw at us some of their knowledge! :-D

Job application =?= romance

2009-02-23T13:39:00.002-05:00

This is my new theory. Applying for a job is like being in a romantic relationship. There are highs, there are lows: does he like me, does he not like me, are we a good fit, will he support me, i should play hard to get, not too eager... and it all ends either in breaking up or a marriage proposal.. i mean a job offer.
and so continues my saga of job hunting with no resolution in sight.

free water

2009-02-23T11:09:00.003-05:00

i just heard that US airways is going to reverse their charges of non-alcoholic drinks. Seems they had too much negative publicity and they were not saving enough money to make the whole thing worthwhile. Also no other airline joined US airways in this charge. So now they have reversed it.
Now when are they going to remove the bag charge fee? it is so consistent in charging for checked in luggage and not carry ons. Because now most people try not to have checked in luggage and they bring these huge carry on pieces, which don't fit in the compartments above the seats and so they are "checked in" at the gate. So... what is the point? oh more importantly, the charge was brought on by high fuel prices which have since gone down down, way down. So why are we still paying for it?
Oh and my absolute biggest pet peeve about airlines? not being allowed to take liquids thru security. I heard somewhere they will relax this rule this year but nothing for sure. Anyone know anything about this?
wow this post has turned into a rant against airlines. Of course some airlines like Jet blue and Virgin are quite customer friendly :-)

the verdict

2009-02-21T19:49:00.002-05:00

So has anyone been watching the Dollhouse? they had the second episode just yesterday and I must say that I like it so far. It has big potentials. Not the best actors, sometimes it becomes a little bit fake, but it's pretty good. The story is interesting and currently, I am hooked. That's a pretty good start right? :-)

I would love to hear from others who have been watching.

brilliant!

2009-02-17T20:29:00.000-05:00

wonderful song, video... everything!

le Café - Oldelaf (english subtitles)
by Boebis

Sheherazade \approx Shahrzad

2009-02-17T19:48:00.004-05:00

Last weekend (v)Alentino and I went to watch the symphony play Sheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. The music is based on the one thousand and one night fable where a jaded king believes all women are dishonorable and dishonest. So every night he would get a new wife and in the morning, he would kill her. Until that is, he married Shahrzad (the correct Persian pronounciation -- and she was a persian queen). On the first night, to farewell her sister, she told her a story. The king overheard her and was in awe and wanted to hear another story. However Shahrzad said the king would have to wait for the next night. For 1001 nights Shahrzad told stories, at the end of which time it seems that the king had 3 songs with her and had been taught about morality and kindness. (everything up to here is plausible except for that 3 sons part. Is that even theoretically possible in 1001 nights?)

Rimski-Korsakov - Sheherazade - La mer

This is a very beautiful piece. The above video is the beginning of the piece where you can just picture the king having made his royal decree and then you hear the beautiful and sweet voice of Shahrzad bewitching his with stories. Really beautiful.

We also had a very special seats! we were sitting right at the front, on the 3 row in te orchestra section, on the right edge. We had very good views of the back of the double base players, the conductor and the first violin!! Fortunately, there were a lot of violin solos and the conductor was fun to watch!
A great night, ending with a quick stop in Carl Jr's for a bite to eat in all our finery :-P

Dollhouse countdown!

2009-02-12T19:10:00.003-05:00

Something major is happening tomorrow. Hallelujah. Joss Whedan's Dollhouse will be debuting on the evil channel and oh baby doll, I am trembling with excitement.
I have waited for this moment a long time, counting the months and the weeks and the days.
First it was Buffy, then Firefly, then Doctor Horrible and now.... welcome to the Dollhouse.

Here is Joss' interview on NPR which was on today. Totally recommended.

Meanwhile I am wondering why the evil channel is putting the show on such a horrible time slot, 9pm on friday nights. This is HORRIBLE (no pun intended!). Esta bien... we will still watch it. But why did Joss go back to Fox??? Grr. Such a bad move.
As you can tell, I am very excited!

Impressive

2009-02-10T12:57:00.002-05:00

A benefit of being in Calgary is that I get to watch cable. Last time I was here, it was just before the elections and i had the channel on CNN the whole time. This time around the channel is still on CNN and I am watching Obama promoting the stimulus package. The last couple of days he has started doing these townhall meetings and press conferences and I am so impressed. Seriously the number of things he has to have a handle on is very impressive. In his first press conference, he started by giving a short overview of the stimulus package, then he fielded questions on economy, foreign policy, sports (A-rod) and state of the union. It was amazing how he would shift gears and start talking about somehitng totally different and people would want detailed answers.

To birth or not to birth

2009-02-06T11:13:00.004-05:00

A big story in the news these days in Calgary is about a 60 years old woman who just had twin boys. Seems she and her husband always wanted kids but they couldn't ever conceive. About 10 years ago they tried to get IVF treatment in Canada but she was considered too old. She tried IVF in India (where she is from). They spent all their savings but she couldn't conceive. Last year they again tried IVF in India and she conceived and she just had her two healthy little boys last week. Supposedly she and her husband are taking care of the kids with the women's two parents.
There is a whole lot of hoopla right now about the ethics of the whole thing. Was the woman right to have the kids? Is it fair to the kids?

For me, it's a really hard decision. In a way I understand that people have dreams and this couple has wanted a kid for so long. And they are able to provide both financial and emotional support. But I also wonder how it would be for the kids to grow up with such old parents. It is bad enough having one generation gap between yourself and your parents, here you have two generation gaps. Then again they say that a lot of kids are brought up by their grandparents and they turn out well.
I do wonder why the couple didn't adopt kids when they were younger, but then again a lot of people prefer to have their own kids.

So I don't know. I would love to hear what others thinks.

Dancing and Music

2009-02-01T03:39:00.001-05:00

This weekend Albanini and I went to a great little bar called Cigar Bar and Lounge in SF. It's cozy and has a nice atmosphere. There was also a small salsa band who were fab and we danced the night away. A much nicer place than the salsa place close to our house which Albinoni and I go once in a while because we are too lazy to go far. So we have been to this place (the one close to us) several times and there are definitely regulars. There is this woman who is a fabulous dancer with long hair that generally flies about as she turns and little dresses which are rather low cut and I am always surprised they don't reveal more accidentally! But it is so funny when she dances there is usually a line of men standing to the side just watching her. Anyway we found out she is a bit of a slut. Then there is this smallish guy with slicked back hair who is so cool he wears sunglasses in the dance club. Gangsta material. The DJ there seriously sucks. Seriously. ok enough complaining about this club. One good thing about the club is the teaching hour they have before the band starts playing. The teachers are relatively good. Now i am finishing on a good note :-)

Last night we also went to a concert by the Kronos Quartet. I had only heard Kronos' soundtrack to Requiem of a Dream and I absolutely love their Lux Aeterna. So I had high hopes going to the concert. Alas the first half they played all these very modern atonal, discordent music which contained background synthethized sound and some whispers and voice additions by these guys. It was amazing to me how anyone could actually like this so called music. Given 2 violins, a viola and a cello, you can make the most beautiful, deep and harmonous sounds and when you hear deliberate jarring and scratchy sounds, you wonder. Of course, what do I know, for there were people who loved and clapped and expressed their amazement at the beauty of the "noise" after wards during the discussion with the band.
I really don't understand these modern arts, where you call noise music, and some splashes of color on a canvas, a masterpiece.

After the night

2009-01-30T13:21:00.002-05:00

This is a picture of Gaza students back to school after the bombings. The cards mention the names [and ages] of the students who are not there anymore.
It is not hard to imagine the desperation and desolation of these kids and what actions ca lead from them.

Useful trick!!

2009-01-30T12:57:00.001-05:00

Just enter 'pwn' in front of any youtube video before the word 'youtube' and it'll send you to a download file.
For more details, see here.
Very nice :-)

Job Hunting Syndrome

2009-01-28T15:32:00.002-05:00

The last couple of weeks, while hunting for suitable employment, I have become kind of antisocial. I don't want to talk to my friends and I don't want to see them (esp the ones with jobs!). I don't want to answer any questions about how my job hunting is going.
The problem is more myself, because when i see friends I can't help but talk about what's on my mind but I also don't want to talk about it, so you see, my solution is not to see them or talk to them.
Which is probably not a very good thing! :-(

Informative Video

2009-01-27T17:53:00.002-05:00

Watch the following 60 Minutes piece. Very informative. The situation in the middle east is extremely sad.

Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?, 60 Minutes: Growing Number Of Israelis, Palestinians Say Two-State Solution Is No Longer Possible

Fathering babies at 111... say what!

2009-01-26T18:29:00.003-05:00

This is a very cool story about Henry finally becoming a father at 111 (possibly for the first time). Seems he used to be very crabby but then a tumor was removed from his butt and he suddenly became all sweet natured and lovin, thereby leading to a pack of kids.

On a related note, this is interesting:
"Tuatara, which are found only in New Zealand, are sometimes referred to as "living fossils". They are the only surviving members of a family of species which walked the Earth with the dinosaurs more than 200 million years ago."

A tip of my hat to La Gillen

2009-01-26T15:47:00.002-05:00

La Gillen gave the following link as a comment, but it is so hilarious it deserves its own front page announcement. The following is a most hilarious song about a boy and a girl ... and what happens at night. It is such a deja vu it is not funny. I lie, it is actually hilarious!

Australian Comedy act Tripod performing "Gonna Make You Happy":

ps I already know some people (you know who you are) are going to complain about the xbox mention. Suck it up!
pps La Gillen is seriously the best for continually introducing me to new music and hilarious shows and... the world! :-D

Colorful Benediction

2009-01-25T12:35:00.003-05:00

I love the wording of the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery during President Barack Obama's inauguration:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

Then Jon Stewart added a couple of more lines:
When Blue will be allowed in two, when Puce will be set loose, when we rise above the minutiae of Fuchsia, and Orange …. screw Orange!

Are you there God? It's me... Fly!

2009-01-23T01:24:00.003-05:00

The above graph shows the relationship between how much (and when) an atheist believes in God and the activity the atheist is involved in. I can imagine a couple of more scenarios that could have been added! :-)

Dawn of a new era

2009-01-20T21:38:00.001-05:00

This is the car I rented. Pretty isn't it? :-) but so hard to drive!
The interview went okay, I met with 10 people from 9am-5:30pm and I was so tired in the end! I can't believe I didn't think about drinking some coffee in the middle of the day. On the way home I got stuck in traffic and I could hardly keep my eyes open!
I loved the job description and let me not say more because I might jinx myself.
No more talk of this. My mouth is zipped.

The only bad thing was that I missed all of the inauguration ceremonies!! I missed it all!!! Did everyone else watch it? Which part was your favourite? Mine was probably the part that it was Obama being the president. Ha! but seriously, I would love to hear what you guys particularly liked about the ceremonies.

my trip - 1

2009-01-19T22:15:00.000-05:00

I am having an interview in San Diego tomorrow which I am really looking forward to. The job seems so ideal for me. The last couple of days I have been preparing for thi interview, going over stuff, my papers, my resume, having a gaming party.. :-P That was saturday and it was really fun but we are not talking about that.
I flew down in the early afternoon and the excitement began on the plane when a combination of coffee and spicy tomato juice totally made me sick. Trust me, being in a plane is not the best place to be in when you get sick. By the time we landed I ok again and I went to get a car. The company had hired an intermediate car and i asked for a compact since I am so short i have trouble driving a big car. After some computer searching they gave me a convertible! :-p yes imagine me in a white pontiac solstice, with the top down (only after asking someone how to do it!). It would have been a magical experience except for the fact that it was so hard driving it! it is a tiny car, very very low to the ground with deep seats that yes I still couldn't see over the steering wheel!! but who returns a convertible for a say, corolla? not me!
Seriously i had a lot of trouble driving and the poor GPS got the brunt of my inability to drive. I took so many wrong turn and the poor girl had to keep recalculating!
finally i got myself to the hotel when i found out i had put in an incorrect hotel address!! I drove again and finally after a very long day i got to my hotel. Interview day tomorrow!

Your morning laugh

2009-01-14T10:59:00.001-05:00

Enjoy!

DRM-free?

2009-01-13T11:29:00.004-05:00

These Apple people are such sneaky people... makes me not want to buy anything from them!!
Although they are making their music in iTunes store DRM-free, they insert your email info into each song/video you purchase so that they can trace songs. Seriously Apple people???
Some thoughts:
- can't you just take out the email via a text-editor?
- wouldn't there be privacy concerns here for the consumer?
- seems Amazon puts inserts a watermark as well, but not related to the purchaser - only that it was purchased from Amazon.

Update:
Amazon doesn't watermark the songs itself. The labels that provide the songs do themselves so the good news is that the songs are not individually marked; i.e., the same song bought from two different accounts is bit-wise identical.

Great Jumping Spiders Batman!

2009-01-13T10:29:00.000-05:00

This is the newest plush toy that is a big hit in Japan. They were going to add her to the Monsters Inc movie but he had powerful enemies.
ok I was lying. That's a real spider, one of those instances were you wonder at the craziness of nature.
It is a Jumping Spider. It is furry, female, has 8 eyes and can jump 30 times its length. Don't you just want to hug it? :-P It is amazing!!
More pictures. More info.

T-minus 10

2009-01-13T00:03:00.003-05:00

I have been running simulations on my trusty machine in the past couple of days and I know my computer is doing some serious number crunching when its fans become alive and it starts humming real loud to get my attention. I think it's complaining. Anyway, sitting next to it and hearing that fan go faster and faster, I get this image of a rocket revving up for blast off. Other times I think I am going to gradually see smoke coming out of my computer and the whole thing just self-combusting... go up in glory!

Who said programming is not imaginative???? :-P

How to get music savvy

2009-01-11T21:42:00.002-05:00

It might surprise many people, but I am not what is considered "cool"... NO WAY!! no, really? I know, I was quite shocked myself when I discovered it. But then I asked my mum and she said, well, surprisingly, she confirmed it.
Hark!
The who issue gets re-confirmed whenever we play trivia and I find myself so clueless about current music. Now give me a bit of opera and I might not do AS badly, but .. who am I kidding. Anyway, Atlanta is similarly clueless about cool music. As an aside, this might be why we are so good for each other -- both of us are clueless and yet we think the other one is cool. :-P
How did I get here? I am quite the meander-er tonight! the whole reason why I started writing this blog was because Atlanta, in his quest to become up to date with current music, is listening to the radio station of his car in Grand Theft Auto -- yes, not a real radio station, rather the radio station of his simulated car in the simulated NY of GTA. He has come up with quite a few new songs that we assume are cool because they are in video games. I think that is hilarious =D

Ape like

2009-01-07T20:33:00.004-05:00

Recently Atlanta and I were listening on NPR to an interview with Josh Brolin who plays Bush in the movie W. While he was talking about learning the gestures of Bush, he mentioned a particular habit of Bush: when he stands, Bush has an ape-like tendency to angle his arms with the back of his hands pointing to the front. I finally got what he meant when i saw the above picture! it is so true!!! :-P

Meanwhile seems Bush is handing out Medals of Freedom to his good buddies little Johnnie Howard (the old PM of Australia), Tony Blair and Alvaro Uribe (president of Colombia) for their support of anti-terrorism and promotion of democracy in the world... meaning for blindly following in the footsteps of Dubya. What an honor to be in such an elite group...

Favourite Past Time

2009-01-07T01:01:00.004-05:00

A new favourite activity of mine these days is watching Alvaro play Metal Gear Solid online... He is Ellen Petrovich and there is something so incredibly addictive in watching her try to rise above her sloth status :-P hehe I kid I kid. He is definitely a hawk (wannabe). He belongs to this colombian clan and you know they are the elite of the elite. He leaves around playboy magazines and while the innocent are distracted by these trashy mags, he executes them, Ellen style. That's just the way s/he rolls you see. But he really is getting better, making more head shots, and cries and curses the gods only once in a while.
Trust me... it's more entertaining than any TV show. 24 has nothing on this. :-P

Fair?

2009-01-05T18:38:00.002-05:00

There is something wrong when a military offensive leaves a death ratio of 1:100 on the two sides. 5 to 500.... Can anything this unbalanced be fair? it makes me wonder.

Back to schooling

2009-01-05T18:17:00.002-05:00

These days I am preparing for job interviews by going over my C++ progamming books. It's a lot of fun actually re-reading these and learning how the language has changed and what is new. I wonder if it is because I know the basics and so I understand everything much deeper and better now.
A couple of more days of this and then I begin the algorithms re-training.
Learning is Phun!

Spiderman

2009-01-05T18:07:00.003-05:00

Seems I am on a music roll. I actually have lots of things to write, except I don't seem to have time. However, I do have just enough time to mention how much I love the big band music of Michael Buble. If you haven't heard him, try him on It had Better be tonight and Irresponsible and Feeling Good. Very nice! Here he is with Spiderman: (not my fav but pretty fun)

In terms of music, i think I was born after my time :-)

Argument to Music

2009-01-02T18:05:00.001-05:00

and not just any music - Beethoven's 5th :-)

TMI

2008-12-16T14:46:00.003-05:00

This post is possibly going to be one of those TMI posts - too much info!!
It might not be a bad idea for you to close the browser right now or simply watch the Wolverine trailer below and then quit.

Are you still here? Well don't say i didn't warn you. Possibly i have made too much of the following so now that read the below, it will seem too inconsequential. There is no winning!!

I have bunions. You don't know what it is? well click on the word!! basically it is a slight deformity of the foot, extremely common, that makes you have a little bump next to the base of my big toe. My right foot's bunion is bigger. It's hereditary and related to how you place your feet and the bunching up of the toes. Recently a friend suggested i use toe spacers to separate my toes and ensure that the bones don't bunch up. I bought them yesterday (finally) and am wearing them today.. and so far, they seem interesting. I am hopeful!!! It's amazing that I didn't know about them earlier. I will have to keep wearing them and write a follow up blog later on, on their effectiveness. They won't reverse the condition but they supposedly improve comfort.
ok, back to wolverine ;-)

Dreamz

2008-12-16T14:36:00.002-05:00

I had a horrible dream last night. I was one of the grownup kids of a big family, one father who had had multiple wives. Suddenly all the kids belonging to the other mothers started being murdered except for our mother who had three daughters (i was one of them). One of my sisters had another daughter as well. Our father had just been released from jail and we knew it was him, but we didn't know why he was doing this and to whom. It was really stressful, trying not to provoke the father and trying to escape and wondering if he was going to also kill his granddaughter. In the meanwhile we find out that he is killing them because he loved our mother the best and since she had passed away, this was his way of showing his affection for her and only her. In the end, just when he is about to murder his granddaughter, we attack him and take him down. I woke up before knowing exactly what happened though, if he had been totally taken down.
What a dream...

Why doesn't the pot boil????

2008-12-10T17:57:00.003-05:00

You've heard of the saying "A watched pot never boils" right?
well, today for me the appropriate saying is "A watched inbox doesn't receive the email that you're waiting for".

I'm waiting... sigh!

JCVD

2008-12-05T16:40:00.003-05:00

Last night, Atlanta and I went to watch JCVD with our karate club. The movie is very good, extremely stressful but funny and sad actually. I really felt for van Damme by the end of the movie. I really recommend watching it. Osu!!
Meanwhile, enjoy the following teaser trailer that they showed at Cannes.

Most popular pages

2008-12-05T16:27:00.002-05:00

It is always interesting to see who accesses my blog and how they get there. In particular, I have two posts which appear very popular with random people.
The first is my post on funny myths. I have no idea why, but I get a lot of hits on this page from google searches.
The second one which is more interesting is my post on the legend behind the song Sari Galin. My original post was based on what my Turkish friend had told me about it since I couldn't find information about this song anywhere (and it is a most beautiful song, with many translations). Seems I had touched upon a well, touchy topic, as you can see by reading the comments that people have left there. I got another comment yesterday and when i looked on google, I think i am very high up on the search list. It's really very interesting... and as Atlas said, there is so much hate in the world!!

My police hour

2008-12-05T16:25:00.001-05:00

A couple of days ago I had an interesting run in with the police. I went to park my car near a shop when i noticed that a policeman on his bike was behind me. He wasn't flashing any lights but was obviously following me, so i started wondering how long he had been following me! I quickly parked the car and stayed in my seat wondering what I had done wrong - I wasn't driving fast, I had put my blinkers on when I had turned, I wasn't talking on the phone... what had I done? While I was waiting, he was standing behind the car, reading off the number plate and talking on his walkie-talkie. I wasn't sure if I should get out of the car or not... I'd heard all these stories and some of the cops I had seen in the US were so scary. I started to open the door slowly, giving him plenty of time to object, in case I wasn't following protocol.
Since he didn't say anything I got out and half frightened out of my skin, I approached the policeman. However, the guy was the nicest man ever. I was so nervous and he was all friendly with a big smile and very talkative. Seems my registration was overdue. He wrote me a ticket but I kept thanking him for not scaring me. I think I must have been very embarrassing and I don't get embarrassed that easily, so you can imagine...!!!
Afterward I just kept laughing at myself and what a fool I must have seemed to the guy!!

Privacy

2008-12-02T20:36:00.003-05:00

One of the topics I find really interesting in my research work is privacy. There are so many different types and levels of privacy that can be achieved. There is also usually a cost associated with the privacy level. The funny thing is that although people in academia (like me) think privacy is SUCH an important thing, most people don't care about it all that much! Showcase numero 1: seems 300 MIT kids were willing to trade all voice and data privacy with an iphone.

Anyway I wasn't planning on writing about this stuff! I wanted to write about two pet peeves of mine related to privacy. First is when you are at your desk, behind the computer and someone comes up to talk to you. Now the first thing they do is they look at your monitor and see what you were doing.... grrr!! So very rude!
The second pet peeve involves people posting up pictures of people without asking their permission. This is annoying and I think it is VERY rude. It is a total invasion of their privacy and yet... how can some people not realize it? if anyone wants to put up photos of me on the internet, so that anyone can have access to it, they better tell me and ask my permission.
Grrr.

Dijkstra's words

2008-12-02T20:04:00.004-05:00

I love this quote by Dijkstra:
"The usual way in which we plan today for tomorrow is in yesterday's vocabulary."
It comes from an article written 20 years ago by Edsger Dijkstra, which discusses the state of computer science education.

Socratic method

2008-12-02T18:46:00.002-05:00

This is a really interesting article about teaching using asking instead of telling (the Socratic method). The author teaches primary school children about binary arithmetic. The article contains the questions and responses of the class and I really enjoyed going thru the logic and teaching method.

Tantrums

2008-11-27T16:59:00.001-05:00

However much money you pay for an airline ticket, you cannot control who you sit with. I am always apprehensive about sitting next to really fat people or worst, smelly people or those that make unnecessary noises. Babies are always tough as well, you never know when they are going to throw a tantrum.
On my flight today, a small family with a 1-2 year old were sitting across me. The little boy behaved really well thru most of the flight -- he was energetic and wouldn't sit down but he was happy and played with him mum and dad. About 2/3 of the way through though I don't know what happened but he suddenly started crying and crying really loud. Nothing his parents did helped. Usually I can get annoyed and think oh I didn't pay all this money to have this noise pollution. But you should have seen this little boy, his little body was racked with sobs and he was so upset. After maybe 10-5 minutes or so, his mum managed to quite him down a little bit. She was rocking him in her arms and you could see that although he had quietened down, he was trembling and hiccuping.
I was thinking first how weird it is to be a little child in this world and how when they are upset, it is such a sad sight to see. Once I stopped thinking about myself and imagine it from the perspective of the little guy, I was just sad and wanted to make him feel better. Poor little guy.
Meanwhile I was seeing how the parents were handling this. Many times I have said oh I am not ready to be a parent because how can i handle a child throwing a tantrum? But can anyone truly be ready to handle such a situation? Would there be a time when a person says, ok from now on, I can take anything the little kid throws at me.
I think that it is true that you need to have a certain level of maturity before you think about kids, but I don't think you are ever going to get to a stage when you think you are totally ready. I believe you are never going to be totally ready for all the facets of child bearing so waiting for that time to arrive is simply futile.
Having a child will bring you many moments of wondrous beauty and to balance, moments when you want to throw your hands in the air and say what have i gotten myself into. I think the point is, just like your own life, concentrate on the beauty and appreciate those moments all the more.
Of course, what do I know!! :-P

Infinite memory

2008-11-27T02:22:00.002-05:00

I read an interesting article tonight about a woman who has an infallible memory of events from her life. She remembers everything - every single little thing - that happened to her since the age of 15. A couple of interesting things from the article:
- she remembers events infallibly, but not facts. So she didn't do particularly good on memory tests and also she didn't shine in school. So that's kind of useless right?
- For her, the adage "time heals all wounds" doesn't apply as she remembers all bad events clearly.
"I don't look back at the past with any distance. It's more like experiencing everything over and over again, and those memories trigger exactly the same emotions in me. It's like an endless, chaotic film that can completely overpower me. And there's no stop button."

For someone who has a horrible memory of both events and facts, a perfect memory is very very desirable. And yet I am not sure if I could accept not being able to rely on time to heal some of my wounds. It's funny how the disadvantages of certain gifts are not always clear.

billions and billions

2008-11-25T14:41:00.003-05:00

Who would have thought Sagan's use of billions and billions would be so prophetic? This last week I have been watching CNN (yes I am in Calgary and thus have access to ... well, tens and tens of channels!) and the numbers that people are using are just so... well, large! 700 billion for this, 800 billion for that...

Speaking of big numbers, I was reading up on the googol, you know, as you would....
here is what wiki was saying:

"One googol is presumed to be greater than the number of elementary particles in the observable universe, which has been variously estimated from 10⁷⁹ up to 10⁸¹. A googol is also greater than the number of Planck times elapsed since the Big Bang which is estimated at around 8 × 10⁶⁰.

Since a googolplex is one followed by a googol zeroes, it would not be possible to write down or store a googolplex in decimal notation, even if all the matter in the known universe were converted into 0s. Indeed, if you had an unlimited supply of ink and paper, you would need around 10²⁰ times the current age of the universe to fully write down a googolplex."

Pretty big. So, where was I? right. Don't you worry about the state of economy in US? I'm getting more and more worried. I wish I could bury my head in sand and wait until things become better. That works, no? :-P

Post-Defense Depression

2008-11-21T21:18:00.002-05:00

No, no, I joke, no one is depressed. I was just making a play on the name postpartum depression and I just found the resulting name funny (not that there is anything funny with PPD). I am very happy I defended and I don't have to worry about that anymore.
Having said that... I also feel really fragile. My position and future is so uncertain and I have no idea what will happen. One minute I think, oh this will be great, I will have a job, I am qualified and then something slightly negative happens (or even doesn't happen!) and I become really depressed about my future. The economy is bad, my record is not good enough,... sigh. I feel like the Dow Jones, where my stocks are just falling falling and falling in this time of uncertainty!

Buika

2008-11-18T12:34:00.002-05:00

My newly discovered obsession is an album by a Spanish singer Concha Buika who mixes up flamenco with jazz and african rhythems and funk. I really like her most recent album called Nina de Fuego (Girl of Fire) as it has more flamenco than her other ones. I have been obsessively listening to a number of the tracks, including the one below:

I love her husky voice, vibrating with emotion. Then there is her rendition of Volver.

Doctor, doctor, give me the news, I've got a...

2008-11-17T17:00:00.002-05:00

So... the climax of my graduate career went by in a very anti-climatic manner. Last Friday after another horrendous traveling experience I defended and I am PHinisheD. Well, kind of, there are still stuff left over to do, but I have passed. Yay. Very anti-climatic indeed. I am more worried about finding a job. What to do, what to do.
I did enjoy a really fun weekend though. My lovely Atlas bought me flowers and I celebrated with MD and CA friend.

A real pageant

2008-11-11T02:35:00.003-05:00

Tonight I watched a really interesting documentary on PBS about the Miss Navajo Pageant (official site). One of the few requirements is that the contestants should know how to speak Navajo language, be over 18 and not married.
The pageant followed a very interesting schedule:
Day 1: they were asked about the Navajo government and council etc.
Day 2: they had to butcher a live sheep, clean it and cook it. Then they were tested on their grasp of the Navajo language
Day 3: they showcase their traditional skills
Day 4: The coronation

The women were beautiful, not in the glamorous Hollywood sense, rather in their smooth, tanned skins and high cheekbones and straight black hair. They seemed so sweet and so simple and so removed from the beauty pageants that are run these days where the women look so fake and decadent.

Games

2008-11-09T15:30:00.003-05:00

Last night Atlas and I were invited to a game party where we spent all evening playing all different kinds of games. It was so much fun!! We played Taboo (which I LOVED), apples to Apples (random), Fact or Crap (really random because hardly anyone could tell them apart!) and Spoon (a hard hitting card game). I used to play monopoly and other card and board games a lot when i was younger but these days it is always video games. Well no more I say to you. Today is the dawn of a new era and the name of this era is...

Smile

2008-11-09T15:27:00.000-05:00

This video always makes me Smile :-)

Enjoy.

The future looks bright

2008-11-06T20:36:00.003-05:00

... indeed it does. It might sound trite, but hope is an amazing thing. It is wonderful to be able to look up to someone, to be inspired by someone, to aspire to be a better person. We all need to have hope and have ideals.

As I write this, I know that it is easy to laugh at my words and their idealism. But what's the point of constant cynicism? We need to hope and we need to dream and dream big.
I am happy to be here in the US right now.

Meanwhile, it seems Southpark already has an episode out about the election results. You can see some of the clips here and the whole episode is on hulu i think. Kind of funny :-)

Day Zero

2008-11-03T23:48:00.002-05:00

Can you believe tomorrow's Day Zero? Why are all day zeros so anti-climatic? My big day zero is approaching fast and yet I am starting to feel that anti-climatic feeling.

Anyway, back to tomorrow. I hope I am happy tomorrow night. I really do.

Meanwhile I read a very nice blog entry by Linus Torvald's blog who talks about the danger of being "against" something as opposed to "pro". This is a really nice and subtle point.

Haunting Allegretto

2008-09-24T14:37:00.003-04:00

Isn't funny how when you suddenly learn about something, subsequently you see it everywhere. You wonder how you missed it the whole time before, or did everyone really learn it with you? (the first sounds more plausible of course!)
This has been the case with the soundtrack of the movie The Fall. They play Beethoven's 7th Symphony, Allegretto, which is absolutely beautiful.
Since we first heard it during the movie, we then found it in our records and now I have heard it twice on my classic FM radio.

However did I miss this beautiful piece of music before?!!