on the lighter side

2006-05-14T21:50:00.000-04:00

Is there life on Mars ?
If water exists beneath the Martian surface, why shouldn't life be present today on Mars?

Even if there is a high possiblility of life on Mars, how does one go about testing the existence of life? Martian life could be fundamentally different from living organisms on our Earth. They might look different, feel different, and even made up of different elements.
Life on Earth is largely carbonaceous and there is no reason why we should expect the same in Mars. However, scientists have been lucky -the Martian meteorite seems to provide evidence for carbonaceous material on Mars- IS THIS A SIGNATURE OF MARTIAN LIFE ?

2006-05-08T23:27:00.000-04:00

Our -less world : with forward and backward movement ;)

Clothes : strapless

Phones : cordless

Computers : wireless

Time : priceless

Efforts : tireless

People's life : penniless

And Politics : mindless

2006-05-07T22:59:00.000-04:00

Exploring Canadian Rockies
First of my adventure to spend all of five days with my own self - all alone. Usually I have a ring of some friends ( not all are interesting, but some people to listen to my chit-chatter and to eventually get bored out of it).
In the unknown terrain of Canadian Rockies, it seemed like I was in the company of a complete stranger - my own self. This complete stranger did not seem to find her city-food in the Rockies and did not much know what to go for as an alternate either. Although this is a food-centric example - there were many such events - like which path to take, when to pause for a nap, is this rustle an 'approaching bear' so on and so forth.
After repeated instances of rethinking the stranger (within me) began to communicate her needs. Her needs of being assured that she is in a safe place - with safe food - safe water. Not that she missed Burger kind potato fries, but really wasnt sure whether these blueberries from the trees are edible or the brook had potable water.
This whole adventure made me realise how much of a dilemma the mind faces in an unknown terrain. There should be plenty of this in every day life. Fortunately my stranger friend doesnt think much about it.

2006-04-05T21:49:00.000-04:00

Sanskrit class:

This is a new exciting adventure. However, my Einstein brain refused to cooperate. Added to this, I had joined the class way behind other fellow students! When others were forming long sentences... (mythili was even making philosophical sentences) and poor me... I was still at 'Mama naam xyz'... that means My name is... (sorry name is anonymous).

Even a Russian performed better than what I did - such a disgrace to be an Indian and not being able to read the script fluently (!) but I wouldnt want to discuss this, so lets forget that topic...

I was worried that my classmates would be disgruntled with my snail pace. What can they do? There was no other lower class to demote me!! This *IS* beginner's sanskrit!! But fortunately, the fellow comrades din't bother much - they didnt complain to me at least - probably they were just excited and occupied with their own sentence-making skills :) I also had an infinitely patient teacher who comprehended my slow-firing neurons.

This continued for 4-5 weeks. Sanskrit was dying to join the club of Greek and Latin.

One good sunny day - ie., today - I received a table of verbs in present and past tenses.
Hurrah! I can generate two word sentences!!! Ideally one year olds would have a larger vocabulary... but I am very proud of my sudden spurt of growth. The pride has crossed bounds and has reached blog site!!

A word to those who made the mistake of visiting this page:
learning a new language is like revisiting childhood.... annoying for those around you, but exciting for one's ownself!!

2006-03-31T20:11:00.000-05:00

DIMSUM
Dimsum is the chinese version of Spainish Tapas or the French Hors-de-ouevres (something of a tonguetwister like that). All three types of meals are focussed on sampling various warm and cold dishes in one sitting. Its a perfect option for someone like me - I cant make up my mind seeing the menu card; I always feel like trying out everything on the menu. In the case of Dimsum, there is no menu card (a relief sigh) !! There are tiny carts of food that are pushed around. You choose your favourites.

I used to imagine that Indians were focussed and obsessed with food; every get together, party, wedding, birth/death, has to have food elaborately built around it. Yet there would be old grannies and aunties in a corner holding their own secret meeting on which dish was not upto the mark. ... Leaving that behind, it seems like all civilisations around the world have been obsessing about food for quite some time. Some centuries ago, mothers of all nations met at an international conference and secretly decided that they will make their children eat lots and lots of food...
Mother to a FAT child: You always look underfed. Dont stop eating. Eat some more Dimsum (sadly, tamil amma-kal were kind of left behind.. and they stuck to curd rice and sambhar).

Global Politics: I dont understand why we dont use delicious-food-off policy instead of sanctions against nations. (well if we are truly bothered about their nuclear arms then we really need a good strategy to keep them on the line right?) I am sure the civilian population will become more aware and get tuned into problems, if we dont let them eat DIMSUM or Tapas.

Step 1 should be to patent all foods.
Step 2 should be to form G8 nations for food, possibly F8.
Step 3 should be to not let any other nation enter the F8 ring (To make it sound all important), and to make our own F8 rules on who should own the technology and patent to produce delicious meals!!
Step 4 - Allow usage of Mythili and Lava's hot puliyodari like dishes during combat to incapacitate the tongues of opponents.

This would be such a blast! I hope the presidents and primeministers of future F8 nations will thank me for this proposal.

2006-03-20T23:09:00.000-05:00

A clear blue saturday afternoon
cold frigid wind tore our skin
- though seen serene on this pict.!
We froze on Cape Ann shores;
its an audobon birding trip.

Harlequins - Harlequins
some one shrieked!!
Soon the birders crowded her scope
set to focus a far away spot;
circled yellow on top right.

I peered hard into the viewer-
and shot them with my camera.
Six or seven small slaty ducks
like chestnuts on the blue ocean
near those large weathered rocks.

A graceful squad on water -
their story soon unfolded...
tiny uncommon ducks with spectacular pattern
white facial cresents, vibrant patches and spots.
Note: 'charming males' with colourful plumage.

A scarce bird to be spotted
Histrionicus histrionicus is its name.
Native of rocky coastal waters in winter
live-gems on north Pacific and Atlantic;
potrayed below is my first encounter .

Harlequin ducks
in Gloucester, MA
on 18.03.2006

2006-03-11T09:25:00.000-05:00

MOVEMENT AGAINST FREE POSTS!
Do you receive those free posts of advertisements and brochures at your door every day? I am one of those targetted for receiving these paper packages. Brown paper packages (ref. sound
of music) are not my favourite things anymore. I am delivered free brochures in full dinchak variation - Groceries, travel goods, electronic items, kitchenware, books, jeans, nappies, bikinies, furnitures (as if one buys this on a daily basis). Initially these junk didnt bother me much since they were adding on to my G.K. (podhu arivu) on things in US, but the thought quickly faded away in a month. It usually consumes 30-40 minutes to sort this junk out. I find my one or two 'truly' relevant mails buried in this pile. Being someone who can not throw printed material without reading (classroom training), I end up glossing over the junk which can be for an hour to two!!! And every day I go through the same set of 'why-me' thoughts looking at this pile of junk at my doorstep. Today I have decided to blog it all!!!
/l/
The amount of paper wasted on junk posts in US is appaulling - Amazon foreste azhingidum seekaram! (for non-tamil speakers, I am wondering whether amazon forest can stand this torture!). I am not surprised to see why these companies might collapse - such desperate acts of advertisement is simply a poor marketing strategy. They dont know who to send what!! A single good-looking young lady (like me) is receiving brochures on clothes for infants and 3 year olds and that too specifically for boy toddlers. And this is on a weekly basis. 20-30 glossy pages of pictures. I wish I was targetted for receiving some stuff on dating or how to attract men... or some such thing. Ofcourse things on that topic may be are selling out like hot candies and no one really is dying to sell their products by silly marketing strategies.
/l/
In my view, these junk posts on glossypages should be consuming a lot of money and this ofcourse would be extracted out of the consumers pocket. So I keep away buying from these companies, even if I find something interesting in their brochures! This is a specific note for the bright and rich marketing executives of these companies.
/l/
The next set of utterly stupid marketing strategy is from credit card companies. How many cards should a sane individual maintain?? Can they not find out that I already have four different cards!! On a daily basis, I receive at least two invitations from distinct card companies with bogus offer - '0% interest until next month'! enna pichakaara offer !! They could save the money wasted on postages and papers and in turn give us some decent offers!
/l/
Is there a way to stop these junk posts, like blocking junk email? If emails decreased the usage of snail mail, these junk posts are determined in killing the job of postal service employees. It seems like a pretty useless way of alluring people (at least me) into buying something! And I am one of those easily allured into shopping ... These days, I have learnt to respond. With not much choice left, I procrastinate sorting my posts for weeks - by then the discounts which I might have probably used are outdated.
/l/
Marketing Schools, Teachers, and Students who graduated of out it!!! please lend me your ears: In the internet era, people like me prefer to google for 'economical price' . It is such a wonderful way to stagger domestic activities during late night outs of labwork. In addition, it gives us a good feeling of saving Mother Nature.... So please do not overload me with paper brochures by post.

2006-02-27T19:11:00.000-05:00

A young second generation Indian in the US was asked by his grandmother to explain the significance of "Diwali" to his younger brother, this is how he went about it...

�?@#*!!??

".......So,like this dude had,like, a big cool kingdom and people liked him. But, like, his step-mom, or something, was kind of a bitch, and she forced her husband to, like, send this cool-dude, he was Ram, to some national forest or something... Since he was going, for like, something like more than 10 years or so.. he decided to get his wife and his bro along... you know...so that they could all chill out together.

But DUDE, the forest was reeeeal scary shit... really man...they had monkeys and devils and shit like that. But this dude, Ram, kicked ass with darts and bows and arrows... so it was fine. But then some bad gangsta boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his babe (Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy, was our man, and also his bro, Laxman, pissed... And you DON't piss this son-of-a-gun cuz, he just kicks ass and like...,all the gods were with him.. So anyways,you don't mess with gods. So, Ram, an! d his bro get an army of monkeys.. Dude, don't ask me how they trained the damn monkeys... just go along with me, ok... so, Ram, Lax and their monkeys whip this gangsta's ass in his own hood. Anyways, by this time, their time's up in the forest..and anyways...it gets kinda boring,you know... no TV or malls or shit like that.

So,they decided to hitch a ride back home... and when the people realize that our dude, his bro and the wife are back home... they thought, well, you know, at least they deserve something nice... and they didn't have any bars or clubs in those days...so they couldn't take them out for a drink,so they, like, decided to smoke and shit... and since they also had some lamps, they lit the lamps also... so it was pretty cooool...you know with all those fireworks.. Really, they even had some local band play along with the fireworks..and you know, what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding.., that was the very first music-synchronized fireworks..you know,like! the 4th of July stuff, but just, more cooler and stuff, you know.

And,so dude, THAT was how, like, this festival started.

2006-02-20T21:18:00.000-05:00

IN THE AIR!!!

2006-02-19T12:32:00.000-05:00

My all time favourite - Calvin and Hobbes!!

2006-02-12T17:30:00.000-05:00

click here to learn the rules

2006-02-12T17:28:00.000-05:00

Real Insurance Reports

These reports were submitted when policy-holders were asked for a brief statement describing their particular accident.

The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention.
I thought my window was down but found it was up when I put my hand through it.
A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.
The guy was all over the place. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.
I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.
The accident occured when I was attempting to bring my car out of a skid by steering it into the other vehicle.
I was driving my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before.
I was on my way to the doctor's with rear-end trouble when my universal joint gave way, causing me to have an accident.
As I approached the intersection, a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.
The telephone pole was approaching fast. I was attempting to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.
To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian.
My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle.
An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished.
When I saw I could not avoid a collision, I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car.
The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran him over.
I saw the slow-moving, sad-faced old gentleman as he bounced off the hood of my car.
Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.
The indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.