What I did this Christmas...

I spent Christmas with family at Philly. And on the journey there and back I finished reading a biography of Catherine the Great by Virginia Rounding. I was in Borders to buy a gift for a 2 year old. I couldn't find anything suitable for the kid, so I bought her a gift card and ME a nice book.

Its an interesting read. Unlike some historical tomes which can be exceedingly boring, this one is very readable. In fact, at times it reads a bit like a salacious romance novel. I'd heard that Catherine was a bit of a flirt, but this was a revelation. She changed lovers like we change toothpaste tubes. That apart, it was interesting to read about the life and politics of the day. I only wish there was more of it. The book certainly focused more on Catherine's private life and her personality, more than her political prowess. I find descriptions of dress and furniture tedious, but Rounding does a nice job of going beyond the mundane. She gets into the skin of her main character very well. A well-rounded portrait of Catherine and Orlov and Potemkin and her son Paul emerges. She comes across as humane, fickle, intelligent, manipulative, a woman of taste who enjoyed the arts and a stateswoman capable of keeping people at bay and under her thumb. A beloved ruler, a loving grandmother, a very generous lover (she treated all her lovers extremely well, even after casting them off!) and a power-hungry wife, quite capable of plotting not just a coup to overthrow her husband, but also his cold-blooded murder. All in all, a woman of many parts with shades of grey that make her an enigmatic figure. Also interesting was her matter of fact description of how Catherine was treated after she gave birth. Apparently, her job of producing the heir being done, she didn't merit clean sheets after the delivery. Hard to believe a princess being treated with such indifference and outright cruelty. Also interesting (and horrific) was to read of the plague that killed 1/3 of Moscow's population during her reign. I think I'm going to buy a book about Plague in the Middle Ages next.

I also watched a couple of movies over the holiday weekend. I watched Night Shyamalam's The Happening. It was pretty awful. I think he's fallen off the wagon. Signs was bad. Lady in the water was terrible. But this one's plain atrocious. No clear explanation. Just some weird thing that makes people kill themselves in bad bad ways. Its not even scary. A trifle gruesome in parts. But thats about it. I also watched Burn after reading. That was brilliant. I loved Clooney and Pitt. And Tilda Swinton and John Malkovich. And Frances McDormand is awesome. I think I didn't not love anyone. Its playful, dark, silly, funny, plain old crazy and has a mind of its own. Cool.

Very nice cousins also drove me to Edison, New Jersey, a completely amazing place for me, coming from a place with no such Indian community. There are Desi Mithai shops, Cafes, Patel Cash and Carrys and Deepa Auto works and Indo-Chinese restaurants and God knows what else. I had the time of my life. Seriously good food. I bought Kalakand that was almost as good as the one at Chitale Bandhu back home. Foodie heaven.

So, yeah I had a great Christmas. Here's looking forward to a wonderful New Year! I hope it brings happiness and success and all that is good for everyone.

Slumdog Millionaire

I went in with high expectations and came out feeling disappointed. Its a Bollywood flick made in English with a narrative calculated to shock the sensibilities, and therefore, arouse the sympathy of a Western audience. Imagine the worst things that could happen to human being in his life before he turns 18. He is orphaned, forced to beg, narrowly escapes being maimed, his brother rapes the girl he loves, he becomes a chaiwallah, and then wins "Who wants to be a millionaire" because he knows the answers to the exact questions he's asked on the show, through "life lessons".

There are a couple of Jokes that you need to have a knowledge of Indian culture and history to get. Like Surdas being the author of the Bhajan the blind kid is forced to sing...which is entitled..Darshan de bhagwan. And there is a gross scene in which the kid Jamal jumps into a pile of poop so he can get the Big B's autograph. And Anil Kapoor is awesome as the the obnoxious host of the game show. But ever since Taal, Anil Kapoor has always done those larger than life roles justice. For the rest, Dev Patel looks like the hapless kid he is. Freida Pinto has a meaty role that she doesn't do enough with. Irrfan Khan is amazing...as usual.

But on the whole..the movie was a letdown. I have no doubt the Western audiences lapped it up. From the clapping and cheering in the movie theatre, I got the feeling they really liked it. And, btw, its been consistently selling out at least on weekends at the theatre where I usually go that shows independent movies. Its the whole hungry, naked, exploited Indian kids' theme. Glorify the slums, the shit that lies everywhere, the heaps of garbage, the gangs of evil men who force children into begging and prostitution. Throw in a love story. And voila. One very touching movie with excellent reviews that may even bag a few Oscars.

But, my disappointment with the movie apart, how the heck did a gali-ka-kutta with no education manage to speak such good English? The least they could've done is made the movie in Hindi. His accented English makes it all the more unbelievable.

Funny tales

With all the happenings of last week, humor has been in short supply. But, everyday life is not without its moments. Some of those include:

Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the foot, literally. (OK, OK..it was his thigh. But bad pun opportunities are hard to come by.) A couple of inches off and the the world wouldn't have any more little Plaxicos running around. Is that a bad thing? Consider the name...Plaxico!

Arianna Huffington was on Jon Stewart last night. It was painful to watch. Stewart went easy on her, but she still came across as a blithering idiot trying to convince the world to read her book and start a blog. So she says, "You know Jon, I bet you have many more thoughts than you can put across through your TV show." Stewart responds: "There's a reason those thoughts are not on my TV show!"

A better show, was the night before with Calvin Trillin. His ode to Sarah Palin: "On a clear day, I can see Vladivostok." I have ordered the book. His humor seems almost Wodehousian. Love it.

This is a joke. A bad one. But a joke, all the same. And these clowns on CNN are bent on perpetuating this myth that the Pakistanis have been propagating..that they are victims too. The unsuspecting Pakistani public: maybe. Not the excuse for a government. Not the ISI. And certainly not Zardari. The Pakistanis have always been media savvy. What we need is a dhansu spokesperson for the Indian government. Not the expressionless wonder Manmohan Singh. An articulate, smart, chalu, spokesperson. Who can lie as well as Zardari, but lacking his crassness.

Monday blues..

I should be working. I can't bring myself to concentrate. So, I've been reading and reading. And found some gems. Here they are...

Need a laugh....check this out.

Feel an urge to throw up? This is for you. Or this.

Need more to keep you awake at night? Here's a thought that'll do the job.

Want your head to explode. Watch NDTV. Or CNN-IBN. Or any of the shrieking talking heads on the umpteen news channels available.

Haven't choked up enough in the last 4 days or so? Go read. In fact, I have this terrible urge to be in Poon right now. At this very moment. I don't quite know why. I just do.

I knew this would happen. Which is why I skipped the Thanksgiving party. People coming up to me and commiserating.And then wanting to know details. They're all mostly nice people. Just curious. But I'm not in the mood to indulge. Seriously.

Also, mostly I enjoy Maureen Dowd's bitchiness. But did she have to write an article of self-serving claptrap in the face of monumental tragedy?

Something to think about

Love is a manufactured emotion. Unlike fear, anger, affection, the protective feeling you have towards your kids. Lust is a true emotion. And it lasts. Love does not. What remains is the feeling that you can't let someone down. And so you keep on going.

So I was informed today. Obviously this person is married.

I'm going to try to keep on believing that love is NOT a manufactured emotion. Since I'm single, I have the luxury of deluding myself until I find true love (or lust!) or a software engineer with a matching horoscope.

Mumbai carnage

I've been watching news coverage of the Mumbai attacks on CNN-IBN and NDTV alternately. What strikes me is this complete lack of any kind of responsibility in their journalism. Sreenivasan Jain points to a window in the Taj...says the police are focusing on that room. Barkha Dutt asks the camera man to pan to the building next to the Oberoi where snipers are taking up position. WTF! Terrorists watch cable TV too. And they carry cell phones. Seriously. The emphasis is on getting the story out. Nobody seems to care what you compromise in that process. Its shameful.

Also, they need to stop asking people who've just had near-death experiences how they feel. How do you THINK they feel? They've just escaped being shot at by terrorists carrying AK47. Have probably seen corpses lying around on Hotel lobbies. Their whole life probably flashed before their lives. Here's a news flash: Scared witless is how they're feeling. Morons.

BTW, American news channels don't necessarily do a better job. Larry King asked Christiane Amanpour why this attack was gaining so much attention...after all many more people had been killed in previous attacks in Mumbai. And he asked it in a kind of exasperated tone. Like he was upset he couldn't discuss Barack Obama's choice of private school for Malia and Sasha. Like they haven't done it to death already. Deal with it, Larry.

Update: So I wrote this last night and didn't post it. It is now morning, and it is possible that the terrorists were using the news feeds conveniently provided to them by our intrepid journos. Also, the sheer mindlessness of the reporting has now scaled new heights. Or new lows, if you will.

Rajdeep Sardesai has "experts" in the studio discussing the tragic events of last night. They include Adman Prahlad Kakkar and journalist Anil Dharkar. Kakkar gives his expert opinion on the deaths of Mumbai's top cops. Why did they go in without backup, he asks? They were the people who could have provided leadership in this situation, and now they're dead. So, of course he knows that these very smart, well-trained cops went in, in a defiant act of foolhardiness without backup so they could get themselves killed so there would be no top cops left to lead the operation. They sabotaged us. Traitors. Getting themselves killed in this foolish manner..fighting terrorists! Anil Dharkar comments on the casual manner in which Hemant Karkare put on his vest. Of course, Karkare did not know at that point to do the deed with right amount of seriousness. Because he didn't know he'd be killed a few hours later. And that the manner in which he donned his bullet proof vest would be a talking point. God save us from the foolishness of random armchair experts!

I wish someone would shoot LK Advani. Why the fuck does he have to travel to Mumbai, and of course, go straight to the Taj? Doddering fool. All he does is mouth platitudes anyway. And of course, the blame game begins. The incompetence of the government is talked about, while rescue operations are still underway. Could we leave the discussions of our inability to deal with terror strikes to after the attack is OVER?

Bloody fools.

Update1: NDTV is now calling it Mumbai's 9/11. Nice.

Update2: Only in India can you see random people gawking at a military operation with gunfire and all. A policeman struggles to keep curious onlookers back. And a reporter reporting the firing as it happens above her head from a chopper. And the camera panning to a shot of commandos landing on the roof of a building. Surreal. I'm beyond criticizing the journalism anymore. They have no concept of ethics and responsibility. But this is like a movie. A bad
Bruce Willis movie.

Oh God...the anchor now chooses to ask whether it is OK for people to stand around gawking at a live war with live gunfire and a live commando operation. How about your live stupidity? What if that cherubic looking girl reporting from that site was caught in the crossfire? How would you justify your thirst for a story..no matter how it comes? Bloodthirsty folk, these reporter types.

Update3: Rajdeep Sardesai comes on phone to say that the only reason they can beam these pictures is because the power to the occupied buildings has been cut off. So the terrorists have no idea whats going on. Genius. Terrorists don't own cell phones of course. Who believes this stuff?

Update4: Day 3 is on...God..will this never end. I've stopped watching NDTV. I think Barkha Dutt has a giant gaping hole where the rest of us have a heart. Can she be more
insensitive?

Need inspiration?

Check this out.

BTW, he won.

So damn cool!

Eggplant heaven!

Its freezing cold. I mean like my-toes-will-fall-off cold. The heating is finally up and running...it wasn't until yesterday. I have a new respect for electric space heaters. It literally saved my life the last 2 weeks or so. That and thick socks.

I've been craving baingan bharta for the last 10 days. So, I finally bought an eggplant and did the deed yesterday. BTW... the best baingan bharta I ever made. So, my experiments with baingan bharta have been iffy to say the least. The first time, I tried to smoke it on the gas, like my mom in India, and set off the smoke alarm. So, I got scared and threw it away before the cops arrived. I'd only been in the US 2 months at the time. It was a new and scary land. Where people arrested you for smoking an eggplant on the stove. So, I stashed the guilty eggplant in the trash and dumped it. Wiping the scene clean of evidence, so to speak. The next time (almost a year later) I tried to bake it in the oven wrapped in al foil. The result was OK...but not quite bharta-like. Then about 6 months ago, I took a friend's advice, and pressure cooked the eggplant. The result was gooey. It had the consistency of baingan bharta....but that flavor..that smoked flavor was lacking.

So yesterday, I smoked it on the stove again. It helped that it was not one of those giant eggplants the size of a conehead or anything. If anything, it was medium sized. I disconnected the smoke alarm. (yes, yes..illegal and dangerous, but whatever!) And smoked it till was burnt nicely. And voila. The most phenomenal baingan bharta ever.

Lessons learnt: 1). Size does matter..smaller the better.
2). The old way is the best way. There's a reason they smoke it on the stove. Because it works!

Of Dancing and Rain.....

I went to Boston Bhangra's annual dance competition last Saturday. My roommate is the bhangra fan. I just went along for kicks...and because I have not yet learnt to say no. I fully expected to :
a). get bored
b). develop a headache

Neither happened. It was a very cool competetion. The dancing was of the highest quality. I had a great time..the sheer energy of the dancers was unbelievable. A good time was had by all. Rounded off by a fantastic falafel sandwich at the best hole-in-the-wall falafel place in Cambridge. Its called Falafel Palace. And I highly recommend it. Best 5 bucks I ever spent.

Now for the gripes:

1). The acoustics sucked..I mean majorly, majorly sucked.
2). We had terrible seats...but thats because we were cheap. I will never ever try to save money on seats again. Also, people kept getting up and walking. Why? I mean...you'll sit in your seat at the fucking ballet. Why not just extend the same courtesy here. Grrr!
3). Why can't we find decent desi Emcees? They had 2 DJs who seemed to think walking with a swagger and talking of samosas is all it takes. I haven't been to a single desi event with decent emceeing. Do we, as a nation, suck at the ancient art of Emceeing? I think we do. Sadly. I think every desi MC should be made to watch Harsha Bhogle do his quiz show.
4). The girl seated behind me had the shriekiest voice ever...which she employed to good effect. Very often.
5). It rained and rained and rained. Since I was parked a 15 minute walk away...we were soaked. Try sitting in a crowded auditorium with wet socks. Not fun.
6). A very drunk, slightly psychopathic man yelled racial slurs at us as we walked back. But if you walk through Boston Commons late Saturday night..I think you're asking for atleast a coupla drunks. So, it didn't put a crimp in my evening. More like a slight twinge of annoyance. Like a mosquite bite.

On the whole..an evening well spent. And a special shout out to the all girls team from Vancouver. They didn't win anything. But they should've. They completely rocked!

Poetic justice..

Gallo's out in the cold! That roar you hear is probably Montagnier laughing! Either that or Palin made another gaffe and Katie Couric is giggling rather loudly.

Ha!

Read and enjoy!

Needless to say, I am waiting with bated breath for today's debate. Never mind that the moderator is "already in the tank" for Obama. 

These times are fraught with excitement, they are! I'm glad I wasn't born in a different age. I wouldn't have missed the Palin-ization of us for anything.

On with the show!

Jaane tu...

I had to watch it of course. I loved the songs. And Imran Khan is cute. And considering the offerings of the last few months have been Sarkar Raj, Thoda Pyar Thoda magic and crapola of the same ilk, I HAD to watch it.

And its not too bad. Its witty and light and frothy for most part. Until the ugly boyfriend gets abusive and everything gets all angsty. Here's what got my goat. I have been humming Kabhi Kabhi Aditi for the last month or so. ..its eminently hummable. And then I find out about 5 minutes into the movie that its about getting over a dead cat. WTF? A dead cat!

I also felt like Meghna's character was straight out of Wodehouse. Madeleine Basset-she who thought stars were God's daisy chain and the like. Except she didn't have the bitchy parents that Meghna has. Rajat Kapoor and Kitu Gidwani in a dinner scene straight out of Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf.

And Jai realizing he was seeing himself and not his father in his dreams-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Harry realizes he was the one casting the Patronus in his dream..not his Dad. Hmm. Coincidence?

Also, whoever translated the dialogues into English is a freakin' genius. Did a pretty good job of it. Like when Arbaaz and Sohail exit the jail and thank the policeman, the translation reads Muchos gracias. Or when Jai realizes he was seeing himself in his dreams, the subtitles read epiphany. I almost fell out of my chair. Epiphany! Where have the days of " When love calls" (Maine Pyar Kiya) gone? Remember, pigeon go..go..go? Well, to be fair the original was kinda lame as well.

And the last shot...that of an old guy with a sign that says Godot. Why this piece of cleverness that has nothing to do with the movie whatsoever? We all know Godot does not exist, thank you Samuel Beckett. Is Aamir Khan flexing his intellectual muscle or what?

Anyway...I am now a fan of that silly song Pappu can't dance.

I was here...

And it was nice. In a mild, non-spectacular kind of way. The boat ride on the Maid of the Mist was very good. The long wait to get on it, coupled with the obnoxious behavior of some extremely rude travel companions was exhausting, to say the least. I think the crowd sort of killed the experience for me. In keeping with folklore, I met someone I knew at Niagara Falls. (Apparently there are so many desi tourists there that you always run into someone you know. And its true!)

Thousand Islands at Alexandria Bay was a much better experience. 
a). It was quieter and prettier.
b). The audio commentary was very, very good.
c). The stewards on board were cute.
d). Lots of interesting trivia....twin brothers married twin sisters and bought twin islands. Thousand Island dressing owes its origin to a resident of this millionaire's lair. The owners of US airways, Kellogs and the Waldorf-Astoria hotel were some of the owners of their own private islands.
e). One of the islands is on sale...for a couple of mills. Nice. If I had some small change lying around, I could buy it.
f). The Strawberry Daiquiri they served hit the spot.

Great science comes from...

Great commitment. Reminded me of this guy. This is what it takes to be successful at the highest level. Immense self-belief coupled with a healthy dose of foolhardiness. Not for the faint of heart. Or the normal.

Oh.So.Tired.

I need a break. And I'm taking one soon. So, Yay!

Whatta man!

For the last year and a half I have seen one man fight the shithole that was his life with dignity, humor and indomitable spirit. He had to fire everyone in his lab because he ran out of funding. His grants kept getting rejected because he had no one in his lab to generate new data, and so he was basically writing the same grant over and over. And he had till the end to of this year to get funding or he would have to leave, and his lab would be shut down. He went through immense personal tragedy (that I am not at liberty to reveal), but suffice it to say it was sufficient to break any normal human being's spirit.

And yet he showed up in the lunch room everyday. The lunch room is the place where everyone on my floor meets everyday to eat, and solve the world's problems. We trash Bush. We diss the cafeteria food. We discuss the South Beach diet. We exchange gardening tips. We celebrate when the Celtics/Patriots/Red Sox win, and commiserate when they lose. He showed up in the lunch room everyday, while he was going through personal and professional hell; and he made wonderful conversation. We all knew the crap he was going through. And he never let on. Just made funny jokes, and really erudite conversation, and incredibly astute political observations.

And I heard a few days ago that he is well placed to get an NIH grant. Just when the department was warming up to throw him a retirement party, and buy him a nice going away gift. He's back. He's SO back. And words cannot express how much I admire him for fighting this and coming out on top. I can't ever tell him that.We are not on those kind of terms. We may share a common dislike for Hillary Clinton, but thats about it. So this online tribute that he will never read is about as good as it gets. Cheers to Him, and cheers to his wonderful attitude and zest for life! If I can be one-third the person he is, my life will be happy, full and fulfilled.

False alarm!

I thought about whether I should blog this or not. Then I decided, what the heck. A sense of humor is not something I have ever been accused of lacking. Its about them mice again.

So, I got this email from the vet in the animal facility last week that one of my genetically modified "knockout" mice was dead. I got all excited. Fished around in the animal colony freezer for the carcass. Brought it up to the lab. Waited till everyone left (just being sensitive..dead animals stink!) and opened her up. Found a mass of black goop. And a large white mass that I didn't recognize. Asked a prof in the lab next door who is rather a sweetheart and a mouse man through and through to take a look. He said he didn't know either, but it was definitely pathological. I was over-the-effing-moon. I couldn't wipe that stupid grin off my face for about 16 hours. Anyway, I carefully dissected my "mass" out and put it in fixative so we could sent it down to the histopath facility for analysis.

Then I got another email yesterday from the vet. Another dead mouse. I almost fell off my chair. I was seeing publications in Cell with my name on it. Ran down double quick and obtained said carcass. Performed autopsy. Saw same damn mass. Then a small doubt. What if its not pathological. What if its just...a normal organ that I'm not able to identify for some reason. Most important reason of course, being stupidity. This time I was able to locate a recently graduated student who knows all there is to know about mouse tumors...he worked on mouse cancer models. He came in and took a look. Said, with a very straight face that I have to give him credit for, "Oh..thats just the stomach. Looks like he had a good meal before he kicked the bucket. Nothing pathological. Just a good old stomach."

I didn't know whether to laugh or just be extremely disappointed that my mice don't have cancer. After I went home, had a cuppa chai and strolled around my teeny lawn, I decided it wasn't worth being depressed over. Besides it IS funny. I thought a normal stomach was an abnormal tumor! And a professor who works on mouse development agreed with me! There is no limit to the ignorance of the human race. None.

I then gave in to my recently acquired interest in classical music (its only a couple of months old, this interest) and listened to some Rossini. After that..mice sans cancer, and experiments threatening to flush themselves down the loo and badly made pasta, and the prospect of having to have lunch with a friend who promises to be all angsty and ex-boyfriend hating (I've become an agony aunt of sorts for the junta here. Me. I don't know the first thing about relationships. And yet they flock to me, Aunty Nyx for romantic advice. Exasperated sigh.) seemed kinda trivial. So, I ate a piece of most excellent Strawberry rhubarb pie, which reminded me of Geoff Boycott, for some reason and went to bed.

Hmmm..

To believe, or not to believe. That is the question. 

This, I have no trouble believing. 'Cos they showed me the data.  

Snippets

This article solves a lot of problems for me. I've always wanted to be a wine snob and never knew enough. Now atleast I can bluff my way through the wine conversations that crop up occasionally at parties. (What a lusciously full Merlot! There I've even made up my first official snobby wine connoisseur sentence!)

This title made me laugh:
Biological Basis of the Third-Cousin Crush
Johan N. Lundström, Charles J. Wysocki, Mats J. Olsson, George Preti, and Kunio Yamazaki
Science 30 May 2008: 1160-1161.

Unfortunately, I was at home on Friday evening when I found it on the Science website and I didn't have full access. I almost drove to lab so I could print the article out and read it. My roommate told me not be SUCH a geek. So I waited till Saturday morning. And it turned to be a letter in response to another article I had commented on earlier here. 
Unfortunately, I don't even know my third cousins. And considering my family, they're probably trolls anyway. 

I heard this song yesterday. And its been in my head ever since. I've heard it about 20 times since. Sometimes, Rahman is just killer. K-I-L-L-E-R. And the hero reminds me of Jugal Hansraj. Fresh-faced cuteness. Easy on the eyes, for sure. Lets hope he can act better than poor old JH. It looks a typical Bollywood college movie. Not one I'm going to be running to the theatres to watch any day soon.

I watched "All the Presidents Men" last Friday. It was gripping. I'm totally tempted to buy the book. Except I've sworn not to buy any books until I finish the 3 unread books I have at home. I'm reading Phantoms of the Brain by VS Ramachandran now. Tres cool. I'd sworn I wouldn't leave Massachusetts because I like it so much and there are so many great schools right here with good post-doc opportunities. But this stuff makes me want to beg an interview with him. Even though he's all the way on the boring West Coast where there's only one season and its always sunny. Guess I need to graduate first. 

Memorial Day

So I went whale watching yesterday. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Perfect to be outside and perfect to take a cruise. I was dressed for the summer. Lathed with sunscreen. Shades were out for the first time this year. And the cruise was fun. We saw 3 different species of whales...Humpbacks, Minke and Fin whales.

The guide was knowledgeable and made the trip more enjoyable. But I have had it with the whales. This is the 3rd time I've gone whale watching in 3 years. And it grows old after the 3rd time. You have to squint and look really hard to see them, unless you are lucky enough to be standing on the same side of the boat that they show up at. The catamaran lurches. And yesterday was a windy day. So it was kind of choppy. I got a teeny bit sea-sick.I am officially swearing an oath to FSM that the next time I go, I will have a kid (my own, not someone else's!) with me. There can be no other good reason to go again. None. 

Plus, I didn't really like my lunch yesterday. Japanese food. Bah! So, I'm still a little crabby from that. Also, I saw a movie that sounded promising but turned out to be a bit of a let-down. Before the rains, it was called. Rahul Bose and Nandita Das star. A few observations:

1). RB's Malayalee accent sucks! He tries, but it just ain't Malayalee. Nandita Das is better.
2). Why is ND always doing these sleazy servant girl roles? (Witness: 1947, Earth)
3). Santosh Sivan makes it look pretty as only he can. 
4). Its too darn slow. And its only an hour-and-a-half long!
5). Men are pigs!

PS: No one really reads this stuff, but if you were with me yesterday and you are reading this, I had a wonderful time. Really. The company made up for everything. FSM promise.

Mmmmm...yummy!

I went to a one year old's birthday party last week. (Yeah, yeah..so my friends have kids. I'm getting old!) This necessitated the purchase of a birthday gift. Since parents are notoriously finicky about the stuff they let their kids play with/put in their mouths/wear, I pitched on a gift card. This meant a trip to Borders. And therein lies a story.

I was at the checkout counter, when I saw this book of recipes of chocolate based desserts. And it only cost 3$. I have recently developed this thing for recipe books. And chocolate is not something I can resist. So I bought it. And then I read it. So of course I had to make something. I spent 3 bucks on the book, after all. So, I picked the simplest recipe I could find. Chocolate truffles. Its Tuesday. I have mid-week depression. Plus I have had to cancel a weekend trip that I was seriously looking forward to because I have to work! I deserve chocolate truffles like nobody does.  

I would put up a picture but they look kind of innocuous. Like mud almost. But they taste heavenly. You'll just have to take my word for it. I swear to God, I could make a living out of this. Like Juliette Binoche in Chocolat. I almost felt like her as I stirred the chocolate mixture and took a tiny lick from the spatula after I was finished scooping it into a dish. It was molten and thick and smelt oh-so-good. Like chocolate (duh!) and cream and vanilla and rum. Mmmm! Most excellent, I say.

Star wars!

Snarkiness from Aamir!

And veiled snarkiness from the Big B.

The gloves are off. The knives are out. Stardust and Filmfare will have to shut shop at this rate. I mean...if the stars can say everything they want to on their own space (with no chance of saying they were misquoted), why would they grant Cine Blitz an interview?

I for one, will cry tears of blood when that happens. I was an avid reader of Stardust and Fimfare back home in India. Once every month, my friend and I would head to Papillon. Our favorite "beauty parlor". And we'd get all the things that girls have done every month, done. And while we were being pampered with pedicures we'd read Filmfare. I couldn't stand Femina or Cosmo. I much preferred reading about Kareena Kapoor's cold war with Preity Zinta than some armchair psychologist's advice on how to make your struggling marriage work.

I remember that I never actually believed those gossipy rags for the longest time. I thought they were making stuff up. Then Sridevi went and married Boney Kapoor. That did it for me. If they weren't lying about that, there's no way they were lying about anything else. After that I believed everything they wrote like it was the gospel truth.

I miss reading that stuff here. Reading the same stuff on Rediff doesn't quite cut it. Besides, you can't really enjoy the pictures unless you can flip through the pages at leisure. But I think the blog version is kinda fun. They are bitchy. They are putting themselves out there. I like. I can't be reading "The origins of genome architecture" all the time, y'know. A girl needs some light frothiness. A Latte if you will. As opposed to an espresso.

I'm currently ODing on lattes. After the last 10 days or so, I don't plan on ever having an espresso again. Ever.

Sunday evening by the lake...

Lake Q is almost at its best...mellow and soothing. Quite lovely!

Ha!

TOI takes WTFness to a new level. But, on the other hand, it does make for interesting reading on a gloomy Friday evening. Makes you think...

1). Maybe there's hope!

2). Nah! Not really!

Life this week....

1).Cooking is therapeutic.

2). Washing dishes is most emphatically NOT. Though I am probably building up some good karma with all the dishes I have washed.

3). I have a most excellent, very helpful advisor.

4). Lately, I have been a most irresponsible grad student. This will change pronto. Now. Today.

5). Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice-cream is most definitely the best. Especially with gulab jamun. Yummy!

6). Apparently, 30 slides is NOT enough for a committee meeting. How many's enough? Guess I'll find out on Tuesday.

7). I make a mean salad. I mean seriously. I'm a good salad maker. Look..doesn't it look appetising?

8). My home looks mellow and quite beautiful in the evening when the sun is setting and there is a gentle breeze blowing and I have a hot cup of chai in hand. Bliss!

A few questions..

So the weekend was pretty foul, weather-wise. Rainy, cloudy, chilly. Not particularly nice weather to go outdoors. (Which I did anyways!) But come Monday morning, and its bee-yoo-tiful. Glorious sunshine, 65F. Not a cloud in the sky and all that. So...the question is, why?

Do the weather Gods not like me? I mean its winter 6 months of the year anyway. Would it be too much to ask for a summer sans the rain?And if you must rain, could you please do it during the week, when I have no chance of going out?

Why can't grad students have secretaries? I need a secretary to organize my notes and my data. I just want to do the interesting stuff. The cool experiments. I hate spending time collating data. Oh wait....thats a PI!

And God...please grant me a vestige of shame. I went 30 minutes late to a meeting with the boss. I hadn't planned on what I was going to talk with him about. I looked, felt and acted like a fool. I need to stop having fun in the weekends. Aren't grad students just supposed to kill themselves working? I think the rulebook says they have no right to a life outside the lab. I am breaking the rules left-right-and-center. Gotta stop having fun. Now. (But its summer...can't I have a leetle fun in the summer?)

Food for thought!

I came across this post on Scienceblogs today. Thought it interesting and thought-provoking. As a very naive grad student, when the time came to make a choice as to which lab to join, I just went with gut feeling. It has worked out well thus far. The advisor is a decent guy with a sense of humor. He is patient and willing to teach. No complaints there. I do know of students who joined labs just because the PI was really famous, and they thought it would be a fillip to their careers. Then they spent 6 years hating the lab they were in. Work sucked. PI was a jerk. Colleagues were terrible.Whatever. I have a classmate who switched labs after 2 years because she couldn't stand her advisor's temper anymore. Getting yelled at on a weekly basis was becoming more nerve-wracking than she could take.

I have to say though, that the best motivation to work is guilt. Your advisor doesn't need to yell at you. Just give you that disappointed look. The one that says, "You're capable of so much more! I have such hopes for you!" I have been shamed into doing things more often than scolded into doing them!

The one thing I do miss in my lab is someone to bounce ideas off of. Apart from the advisor. The other post-docs are nice people, but not particularly communicative. In fact, I'm probably the only one who talks. I think when/if(!) I leave the lab, my voice will echo in its walls for years to come. Its kinda hard to shut me up. And with my PI, the problem is that frequently he goes too fast for me. Then, I need to dodge his ideas faster than I can bounce mine off of him, if that makes any sense!

Finally, if you think the letter in that post was pure fiction, I can tell you it is not. I received an email yesterday from the Graduate director of my program requesting the pleasure of my company at a student's defense tomorrow. FYI, I was planning on going anyway..so I didn't need the gentle reminder. I produce the transcript for your perusal below. (It was sent to all the grad students in the department)

Hi all,
One of your fellow students will be graduating (presumably) this Friday. I think it is appropriate for the rest of the students to attend in support of your colleague. I hope you agree and will make every effort to attend. However, if you happen to disagree, I'd like to pass along the sentiment that you should attend anyway, after all, someday you will be holding a defense, and it will be nice to have someone in the room other than your parents and your committee.

Thank you, and I hope to see all of you there.

I happen to like my graduate director very much. He is on my committee. I have the highest respect for him. The fact that he would send out this email, tells me 2 things:

a). He has previously found that students don't go their colleagues' defenses. Which is stupid. You should go. You might even learn something. Plus, then you won't look stupid when you go to the mandatory party after the defense and enjoy the free booze!

b). He thinks mildly threatening emails might work!

When I received it yesterday, I just thought it funny. And it seemed relevant in the context of the post I linked to. So, I couldn't resist the temptation to reproduce it.

I'm off to drink tea and laze on my lawn in this gorgeous sunshine. Weekend's almost here...Yay!

What they eat in Iceland..

They say doing a PhD builds character. I will have a cast-iron character by the time I graduate.

Andrew Zimmerman just ate Hakarl on Bizarre Foods. Yep...he ate rotten shark meat. He's now onto Puffin meat. That guy's got character too. Eating all that crap and then having to lie about it on TV. Atleast he gets paid well for it.

Oh man...he's now eating blood pudding. Its Icelandic comfort food apparently. Have they not heard of pizza? OK..he just described it as irony, deep, and mineraly! I don't think he likes it. His face is screwed up in pain as he says..fabulous! I'm surprised Andy's nose is not 3 feet long!

Monday nights just got funner..

Because House is back. But last night's episode was a bit of a downer. Too little medicine, too much soap opera. And trust House to consider niceness a symptom! The whole House-syphilis thing was silly. And the team even considering that the syphilis is responsible for his genius as a doctor and meanness as a person is laughable. I have to say though that Cut-throat Bitch (CB for short or Amber-her actual name in the show) is beginning to grow on me.

Line of the episode: We need to prove that you're sick in order to prove that the world as we know it did not evolve because of intelligent design. (All this because someone was nice!)

NB: Why would a person live with everything tasting like lemon meringue pie for 11 years? That is just insane!

This made me smile..

I read this article today, and thought it was a very cool job to have. What could be more joyful than studying happiness? And, I am intrigued by the book..therefore I have ordered it. I am normally very skeptical of sociological studies, but this one has rave reviews and awards and everything. So, it must be good.

NB: To those people who care-I am very happy. I'm not buying this book because I need a self-help book on how to be happy or anything. Just thought I'd get that out of the way before I receive panicky phone calls from any worried folks out there.

1). The weather is gorgeousity itself.
2). The weekend looms with nothing definite planned....lazing around sounds heavenly.
3). I'm reading 2 very good books.
4). Oceans 12 is on TV. George Clooney still had it back then, therefore making it mildly watchable.
5). I succeeded in making contact with my long lost brother. (It was easier to talk with him when he was in India than on this continent!)

5 perfectly good reasons to be extremely happy.

Small rant

I'm a little annoyed by the plethora of papers out there with a complex mouse phenotype that they don't fully understand..so they call it premature aging. Its not aging if they die earlier than they should. Thats just a pathology you haven't figured out yet. And I have to read the paper for journal club...gives me a headache. On the bright side, its easy to critique those papers because they just have so many loopholes in them..beginning with the fundamentally incorrect hypothesis, to poorly designed experiments that lack the appropriate controls. But still, trashing a bad paper gives me no endorphin rush. Just a sad feeling.

Nothing that chocolate can't cure.

Of pee, the weather and general nothingness...

1). I rubbed John Harvard's foot for good luck on a visit to Harvard on Monday. I didn't know that Harvard undergrads pee on it for fun. Oh, well. I've had mice pee on my hands before. Same difference, no? And undergrads are stupid...whether they are at Harvard or some community college in the boondocks. They are young and stupid. Peeing on statues. Bah!

2). Humpback whales trap schools of fish with a bubble trap and a sonic boom. Saw it on Animal Planet. Also, some lizards shoot blood out of their eyes to drive away predators. I wish I could shoot blood out of my eyes whenever my advisor comes in to the lab with that purposeful look in his eyes. The one that says...I have an idea. Lets talk. I don't want to talk. I just want to be left alone.

3). Are they trying to depress me?

They are doing a good job of it, btw.

4). I thank the Lord for the lack of a window at work. Its so gorgeous these days, I'd never get anything done. Nope. I like being cooped up in my little windowless cubby hole of a lab.

5). I don't know why I ordered the Perry Mason series on Netflix. The music is loud, the acting hammy and Raymond Burr doesn't look like the Perry Mason I had in my head. So, I only watched about 10 minutes of the Case of the Restless Redhead before giving up on it.

6). For a change I did an experiment that worked. And this is a pain. Because now the boss is excited about it. He wants me to collate data. I have to sit and stare at white light for hours on end whilst counting foci on a plate. Try staring at white light for prolonged periods of time. Your eyes will hurt. Not fun.

7). I have a committee meeting in 3 weeks time. I've done nothing about it. Zilch. Zip. Nada. Nothing. I'm getting a little worried that I'm so not worried. I should worry a little, right? I mean, I'm actually a worrier. I worry about everything. I don't know why I care so little about something that is actually pretty important.

8). Plus, I have to give journal club tomorrow morning and I haven't even picked a paper yet. Its too nice to read a paper. All I want to do is eat a tiny piece of Mysore Pak (microwaved for about 10 seconds, so it gets all gooey and all the ghee melts!) and sleep.

Gotta get back to work. Darn!

9). I just got back from the coolest talk ever on stem cell biology. (And even cooler...the speaker has dinosaur bones in his home on an ISLAND!) And the company is up the street from my lab! So far they've generated: red blood cells, human bladders that have undergone successful transplantation, retinal pigment epithelium, and some animal species such as gaurs, bantengs and a weird mountain goat whose name I forget. He's like God with a petri dish. Blew my mind. Totally and completely awestruck. I love science.

What not to do when one has nothing to do..

Its Friday afternoon. I had nothing to do in lab. Rather, I had stuff to do, but I didn't feel like doing them. I took a walk outside. It was quite beautiful. It was still only 2.15pm. I felt kind of embarassed to leave THAT early. I even tried to catch up with writing my notebook. And I have to be really really bored to do that. So, I did what I should never do. I went to the JCPenney website and found atleast 6 things I really liked. I pruned it down to 4 tops, and bought them. 80$ gone pfft, just because I was bored and had nothing to do. I don't need more clothes. I have enough clothes for 2 lifetimes.

Oh, well. They were cute. And it is summer. A girl always needs cute, summery tees.

Notes from the meeting

1). Needless to say, SD was warm, balmy and absolutely perfect, weather-wise.

2). There were 17,000 people at the meeting. Yep, 17,000!

3). The convention center was so huge that getting from 1 talk to another was a half-a-mile walk at least. By day 3 I was attending talks in rooms close to each other, even if they weren't the topics I was most interested in because my feet hurt.

4). Starbucks coffee is mediocre and overpriced. Dunkin' Donuts is much better...but they don't have Dunkin' Donuts in California. But on the bright side, Mrs.Fields' Macademia nut cookies totally melt in your mouth. Also, they had terrible food at the conference...the only vegetarian option was tofu with rice. I'm tofu-d out after eating it 2 days in a row.

5). I missed Sydney Brenner's talk, because I went to another symposium on metastasis. I can't believe I missed it. Man who should have gotten 2 Nobel Prizes, but only received one, gives a talk, and I miss it. I blame the stupid program that weighed about 5 kilos and had 500 pages. And showed Sydney Brenner's talk in tiny print buried on page 378. Whatever.

6). I narrowly escaped death by dirty looks at the poster session, when I pointed out some rather glaring discrepancies to a pompous gentleman who had performed a very mediocre (and conceptually flawed!) set of experiments. When he started getting abrasive, I judged it wise to move on. Just to let you know how much he scared me, I didn't go back to the poster session after that.

7). I heard all these huge names in the senescence field give talks. It was absolutely amazing. I've read all their papers and drooled over them. And I got to sit there and hear them present their data. Some of them were humble. Most were arrogant. All of them were opinionated. A few were downright obnoxious. And very few were charming. They spoke well, they were funny at the right times. They didn't go on and on about unimportant details. They handled difficult questions nicely. It was an eye-opener on how to give a good talk. (No hot data though..all published work.) And some of them are in Boston. I sense post-doc opportunities there. Yay!

8). I learned that you don't have to be a junior graduate student to ask stupid questions. PIs can do it too. (Yes...there is such a thing as a stupid question!)

9). I shared a room with my colleague. For most part she was harmless enough. Then, she managed to lose her set of room keys. Not only did she turn the room upside down looking for it, but she also accused me of taking her keys! Some people, I tell you. I almost got mad at her. Almost.

10). Traveling with the boss has an advantage. Especially if your advisor loves to talk. And mine does. I learned all the gossip about the faculty and grad students in our department. Some students who I thought were rather smart apparently did very poorly in their qualifying exam. And some PIs who I thought were obnoxious, really are obnoxious because they are frustrated with their careers. But there is a limit to which one can gossip with the advisor. After about 3 hours, the novelty wears off. But I pretended to sleep..and actually fell asleep. Since even he cannot talk to himself, he also slept.

11). Then I got back, and not only did I have to catch up with my own experiments, but the other members of my lab have also given me lists of what to do for them. They are all on vacation except me. Sucks! I'm doing the work of 3 people, and there is no one to talk with...except my advisor of course!

1 perfect hour...

So, I'm in San Diego for a meeting. The meeting is phenomenally good. All my heroes are here giving talks. Its turning out to be a wonderful learning experience. But more about that later.

This post is to share THE most becalming experience I have ever had in my short life thus far.    It was after lunch. I was too sleepy to focus on a talk and too lazy to walk to the poster session. So, I spent 1 hour sunning myself on the extraordinarily large patio provided for the express purpose of allowing conference weary folk to put their feet up. There was a gentle breeze blowing. It was about 70F. I was sprawled on a large chair, with my feet stretched out on another. I plugged in my iPod and spent 1 hour in serene bliss.
 
There is no greater pleasure than doing nothing. None.

Another mouse post.

Every once in a few months I come back to them mice on this blog. Goes with having a job that entails spending several hours a week in their company. And when I read a headline in Science News that says, " Sex and Drugs and Singing Mice", I am compelled to read the article. Turns out mice can sing. Here is the actual paper, if you care enough to read it. This paper, by another group has some audio files of mouse songs that you can listen to. They sound exactly like birds. Sweet at first. Annoying after about 20 seconds. Astounding, no? Mice sing. They twitter. They chirp. They whistle. (Small rant: To my eternal shame, I can't whistle. I've listened to her instructions a thousand times and I still can't do it. But my mice can. Damn. Sometimes, life is unfair.)

They sing when they're happy (i.e having sex), or when they're high (pumped chock full of amphetamines). Hmm. Kinky research, you say? Well then, read this paragraph from the article:

"A team of researchers led by brain scientist Haoran Wang at the University of Toronto in Canada used special microphones to eavesdrop on mice during sex. When they let a male mouse into a female's cage, he approached her with a series of whistle calls and then, during intercourse, sang more complex chirp songs until ejaculation. (Females sing during social reunion with other females but only squeak uncomfortably during sex)."

Sometimes, you read stuff, and you go Wow! This is clearly not one of those articles. This just makes you think....huh...even the poor mice. Clearly, there is no such thing as intelligent design!

Dare I..(Updated)

Go watch Sweeney Todd?

Its a scary movie. I scare pretty easily. I was scared by this movie when I saw it some 2 years ago. And even now, when I can't sleep at night, I attribute it to my spooky basement, which resembles the basement in the last scene of the Blair Witch Project.

People are cooked in Sweeney Todd. I like cooking. Maybe it will put me off cooking for life. On the other hand, even though they sell people-meat pies to their customers, there is nothing they can do to put me off eating.

I think I am going to take my life in my hands and brave Sweeney Todd tonight. Besides, its Johnny Depp. Anything for Johnny Depp.

Update: Saw it. Not that gruesome. Blood spurting from the carotids of people every 30 seconds...but thats about it. Why is Helena Bonham-Carter still in Bellatrix LeStrange mode? She looks like she walked off the Harry Potter set into the set of ST. Johnny Depp looks too angsty. Perpetually haggard, pained, tortured, what-have-you. The kid who plays Anthony bears an uncanny resemblance to Keira Knightley. That was the scary part..figuring out if she was playing a male role in this movie...or whether it was her separated-at-birth twin brother.
So, for the record..The Blair Witch Project is still the scariest movie I have ever seen.

Scientific news article of the week!

Apparently ruthlessness is genetic. Nature News says so. Emphasis mine:

Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found a link between a gene called AVPR1a and ruthless behaviour in an economic exercise called the 'Dictator Game'. The exercise allows players to behave selflessly, or like money-grabbing dictators such as former Zaire President Mobutu, who plundered the mineral wealth of his country to become one of the world's richest men while its citizens suffered in poverty.

Ebstein's team wondered whether differences in how this receptor is expressed in the human brain may make different people more or less likely to behave generously.

To find out, they tested DNA samples from more than 200 student volunteers, before asking the students to play the dictator game (volunteers were not told the name of the game, lest it influence their behaviour). Students were divided into two groups: 'dictators' and 'receivers' (called 'A' and 'B' to the participants). Each dictator was told that they would receive 50 shekels (worth about US$14), but were free to share as much or as little of this with a receiver, whom they would never have to meet. The receiver's fortunes thus depended entirely on the dictator's generosity.

About 18% of all dictators kept all of the money, Ebstein and his colleagues report in the journal Genes, Brain and Behavior 1. About one-third split the money down the middle, and a generous 6% gave the whole lot away.

There was no connection between the participants' gender and their behaviour, the team reports. But there was a link to the length of the AVPR1a gene: people were more likely to behave selfishly the shorter their version of this gene.

It isn't clear how the length of AVPR1a affects vasopressin receptors: it is thought that rather than controlling the number of receptors, it may control where in the brain the receptors are distributed. Ebstein suggests the vasopressin receptors in the brains of people with short AVPR1a may be distributed in such a way to make them less likely to feel rewarded by the act of giving.

Though the mechanism is unclear, Ebstein says, he is fairly sure that selfish, greedy dictatorship has a genetic component. It would be easier to confirm this if history's infamous dictators conveniently had living identical twins, he says, so we could see if they were just as ruthless as each other.

And then there is this gem in the comments section:

To test this theory, would it be possible for someone to submit hair samples from the Clintons?

Nice...oru simple experiment..oru logic defying conclusion. Requires a gigantic leap of logic to go from people giving money away in a game, to being masochistic villains in real life. But I believe Nature News. They are always right. So, I want an antidote to this gene stat. To shorten my overlong AVPR1a genes. Maybe they will have a swanky gene delivery system soon. Something that does not involve needles. I'm feeling particularly anti-needles this week. Someone in the lab dumped needles in the broken glassware container, and I (unable to say no to the Boss), had to spend one hour gingerly fishing out used needles from the midst of broken glass. If I had a shorter AVPR1a gene, I would have told him to go fly a kite. But what to do...genetically spineless.

BTW, I think that the Hebrew University spending money on studying the genetics behind ruthless behaviour is weird.

Also, why is the antonym for ruthlessness not ruthfulness?

Mucho perfecto dayo at worko!

Everyday I go to lab, set up my laptop and type in the usual keywords in Pubmed. Most days, something really boring shows up. But yesterday, my first hit was a paper so awesome, so cool and so related to what we do, that I almost fell of my chair in excitement. For the first time in a long time, I was actually, really buzzed about a paper. I read it through at top speed. And then I showed it to my boss. He saw the title and said "Whoa!" And then we gushed all over it. And how it would impact our studies. Yesterday was a very cool work day.

And then I read this letter in the latest issue of Nature. I'm reproducing it in full, because it is restricted access, and because everyone must read it. And empathize with the plight of us South Indian women! Not only do we have long, unpronounceable names, but also, due to some weird S.Indian quirk...no surname. And then you get unhappy women like these 3. I have to say that while this has occasionally been an issue over the years, I've never had such a beef with it, as these gals seem to have. Usually, whilst in Pune, some poor soul in a government office would gawp at me when I said no surname, just father's name. Then mutter nasty things under his breath about South Indians who chatofied curd rice and didn't have surnames. So, I have a pretty thick skin when it comes to this. Also, I don't particularly care about such blatantly unimportant things because I don't have enough data for a paper yet. So what does it matter how it will be written on a manuscript that is as yet not in existence.

Anyways, read and enjoy. If you have any creative ideas on how to develop a universal nomenclature system for papers, write to Nature.

Give south Indian authors their true names

Nalini Puniamoorthy1, Jeevananthinee Jeevanandam1 & Sujatha Narayanan Kutty1
Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore 117543, Singapore

Sir

Your recent News Feature 'Identity crisis' (Nature 451, 766–767; 2008) reveals that many Chinese, Japanese and Korean researchers do not receive due credit for their work, owing to inconsistent abbreviation practices and journal requirements regarding names. Many other Asian scientists face similar problems.

We are three female postgraduate students of south Indian ancestry. Indians from the south traditionally do not have surnames. It is only when forced to comply with Western naming standards that they use their father's given name as a substitute. As a consequence, journal rules require them to publish research under the fathers' given names (with which we — Nalini, Jeevananthinee and Sujatha — also sign this Correspondence letter). Obviously, as young south Indian scientists making a contribution to science, we would prefer to be identified with our first names and not by our fathers' given names.

India produces more than 100,000 postdoctoral scientists every year (see Nature India at http://www.nature.com/nindia/about/index.html). We believe that now is the time to introduce a consistent publication system that accommodates Indian names. The universal author-identification that uses contributor IDs, as discussed in your News Feature, is a good start. Such a system could be designed along the lines of the digital object identifier (doi) system used for journal articles. That could be followed by changes to reference rulings in journals to allow for citation of papers with single-name authors who are linked to a contributor ID.

We hope that all of science will take note of the extent of the Asian identity crisis in publishing and will work towards creating a universal system of authorship.

In which I try to broaden my horizons...

Most of the time I prefer to spend my free time lazing on the couch, watching re-runs of ELR or just lazing on the couch. Period. But every once in a while, I can rouse myself sufficiently enough to be able to read articles like this, instead of my usual fare, which is this.

So, their conclusions thus far appear to be:

1). Practising religion makes people happy.

And they need PET scans to come up with that conclusion? Just go to a satsang or something dudes!

2). Living in a religious commune increases cooperation.

Huh! I believe that like I believe this! Actually, I stand corrected. Lots of cooperation happened there!

3). Reminding people of God makes them altruistic.

Umm. Maybe. But I bet if you showed them a picture of a starving child, you would have gotten similar results. Not that I'm suggesting comparing apples and oranges. Just saying.

4). Scaring people with ghost stories makes them less liable to cheat.

Dumbfounded!

My favorite sentence in the entire article:

Exactly what Dr Norenzayan has discovered here is not clear.

Nice.

In the meanwhile my lab struggles to get funding. And all we want to do is cure cancer and understand ageing. Whatever!

I'm going back to my staple diet pronto. I was made for mirth and not matter, anyway.

SMS lurrrve!

Oh dear! This brings back funny memories.

I had a cellphone for 5 years in India. The most amorous SMS I ever received was from a student who had a crush on me. It was mildly annoying, but mostly just funny. He followed me around like a puppy. Told me I looked nice in blue. Did everything he could to impress me, his Physiology instructor, (and 24 to his pimply 18!) except actually pick up a book and study. The boy was hopeless. Totally and completely hopeless. He failed his exams with amazing regularity.

So, here's the deal. I could laugh at it. I thought it was hilarious. My colleagues were horrified. (what guts he has, a teacher no less, useless fellow...you get my drift.) And it was all they could talk about over lunch for about 4 days. After that, 2 students were caught making out in one of the classrooms in the evening, and my poor little devotee was forgotten. He did persist for about 2 months though. Then, I left for the US. And he gave me flowers and some sweets at my farewell party. I gave him some advice to study. He tried emailing me a couple of times. When I didn't reply, I think he figured that a long distance relationship wasn't going to work and gave up.

So, thats my sad little SMS story. I haven't included context of his text message, because for the life of me, I cannot remember it. Clearly, an ode to the beauty of my eyes it was not.

I'm back!

Did you miss me?

No?

Well...me neither, really. Too much to do.

Work. Party. Work. Party. Work. Work. Work. Its been a fun couple of weeks. Running around a like a chicken with its head cut off is not conducive to blogging. Or even thinking.

But as the 5 faithful people who read this know, I'm always open to life lessons. Even when I'm dying of too-much-work-itis. And this is what I learnt in the last 3 or so weeks:

1). Never do 28 MEF preps at the same time. Eventually you end up with about 3 zillion plates of cells and a crick in your neck from sitting in the hood.

2). You can cook the most delectable food and be unable to eat it because you've spent too long cooking it and the flavor has permeated every cell in your body.

3). Want to throw a surprise party? Incarcerate the invitees in solitary chambers for a month before the event. Especially if they are women. I hate to say this of my sex....but seriously, we CANNOT keep our mouths shut to save our lives.

4). Want to watch a raunchy movie with way too much booty on display? Go watch The Bank Job. Its a sleaze fest. And the tunnel digging thing is old. OK. Apparently its a true story. But Royal Family sleaze is so 90s! We are way over them now.

5). Want to watch tasteful eye candy? Watch Hrithik do his topless sword fighting practice scene in Jodhaa Akbar. And rewatch it. Until you've run out of drool.

6). Want to NOT meet with your boss every Friday afternoon? Just pretend to be super busy and make him come and ask you when you'll be free to talk, 3 weeks in a row. The 4th week...he'll cave in and say..lets just do this on Monday. Yay!

7). Refrain from asking the Chinese people in your lab their opinion on the Tibetan conflict. If you want a peaceful working relationship, that is. When you eat lunch with them, just talk about the weather, their health, the general status of their experiments, the terrible cafeteria food and other (seemingly) non-controversial topics.

8). 28 is NOT old (yeah, right!). Its past the annus mirabilis age. But its not all over. Yet. I think. I hope. Desperately. Actually, I had this teacher in med school who told me that you should accomplish whatever you want to before you're 25. Because its downhill all the way after that. I really didn't like her very much. She was mean. And scary. The way she yelled when she was mad. And the whites of her eyes. God. I can never forget her. And she dispensed this particular piece of advice. It may have been the only thing she ever said to me in 18 months that I heard without my heart pounding, or palms sweating. Because I was 18 then. And 25 seemed oh-so-far away. She was evil incarnate. And now I'm 28. Its all coming back to me now.

9). If you jump out of a plane without a parachute, and an explosion occurs on the ground simultaneously...you will not be miraculously saved by the pressure created by the explosion that will cushion your fall, and ensure you land safely on your rear end on a soft patch of grass. No sir. You will be blown to smithereens. Saw it on MythBusters. Next time I want to jump out of a plane, I'll make sure I have a parachute. Not just jump out over Bosnia, feeling hopeful.

10). I have an unhealthy obsession with Wikipedia, chocolate, and this song.

Aaaaarrrrrrrggghhh!

Just letting out a cyber scream to release the tension. I feel so much better now.

A hiatus

I haven't written anything lately, because I find I have nothing to say. Which is pretty strange. Because the one thing I have never found myself at a loss for, is something to yak about. In the meanwhile, read this and rejoice. If you have the time, and crave even more entertainment, read the comments section.

In other still more depressing news than the above, the NIH funding situation is seriously screwed up. I'm seeing it have an impact in my own department, as I watch a lab on my floor wrap it up and shut down completely, because they have run out of funding. This is an eye-opener, and everyone must read their brochure.

This blog is on a hiatus until I get my groove back, my chakras in sync, and my aura is a clear silver. Ciao.

Random post

Before I put Farewell, my Concubine on my Netflix queue, I read the story synopsis real quick. Clearly, I didn't read it properly. For some reason I assumed the friendship was between a guy and a girl. I spent the first 20 minutes of the movie trying to figure out if Douzi was a girl or a guy. Chinese names don't help any..they are completely asexual. Anyway, the movie was just about OK. A little slow and way too long for a movie in Mandarin, a language I cannot fathom inspite of spending 2 years in the company of Chinese people on a daily basis. Plus, the Chinese music grates on your ears after a while. (If a man is singing in a female voice, it can hardly be melodious. Shrieky is the word that comes to mind.)) And they show the same damn opera about 30 times in the course of 3 hours. I liked Gong Li's performance. And Leslie Cheung was a drama queen par extraordinaire. But strictly OK otherwise. The only good thing was that I got to impress my lab at lunch the next day with my intimate knowledge of the personal life of all the lead actors.

This whole magic candle thing is kinda scary. I kept trying to blow the thing out and it wouldn't extinguish. I had serious misgivings about my lung capacity for about 30 seconds, before the cat was let out of the bag.

OK..anybody know why this article in the ToI about a scientific paper has a sentence referring to some Greek island (the island is totally irrelevant to autophagy as far as I know)?

I just watched Atonement. Its totally, completely awesome. But I think I have now reached my threshold for movies that require a brain, or even half a brain, in order to enjoy them. Considering that Netflix has just sent me a documentary entitled "God grew tired of us", it doesn't look too good. I may have to watch Rush Hour3 on TBS to allow my brain cells a much needed rest.

So I'm older...

But not necessarily wiser, or anything else-er. Thanks to all the family and friends who called and emailed. Thanks to all the people on Orkut who wished. People who forgot, you know now why I forget your birthday!

Thanks to roommate (who has been a very good friend) and made sure I had a nice evening in a good restaurant with close pals. Double thanks to her for an extremely luscious chocolate cake from the best cake shop in town. Thanks to labmates and mentor who took me out to lunch. Veggie Dol sot bibimbap tastes just as good as it sounds. ( No, seriously. Its very good.)

And lastly, I'd like to thank my parents for giving birth to me, and God, for creating this intelligently designed, super-duper cool, extremely perfect world that we live in.

Thanks y'all for a lovely birthday.

PS: I forgot to thank my landlord for the pretty flowers and the first birthday balloon I have ever received in my life....as far back as I can remember. (slight pang after reading that last sentence!)

Sunday insanity

Are you in the mood to tear your hair out? Do you feel like watching cheerleader movies is not sufficient to melt the entirety of your brains into a mushy puddle? Do you not know what to do to keep up the aggravation quotient in your life?

If the answer to all the above is yes...then go read this.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

NB: Nothing against the article itself. I happen to think its rather well-written. Just that I can never get used to how spectacularly pathetic our species can sometimes be.

Recently viewed

Over the last few weeks my Netflix list has yielded some very good stuff. I watched Mighty Aphrodite, The Departed, and rewatched Kramer vs. Kramer.The pick of the lot for me was Mighty Aphrodite. I have a preference for goofball comedies.

Mira Sorvino is so good as the ditzy, dumb, prostitute, with a voice that grates on your ears. I loved the Greek chorus intervening at strategic moments with irreverent comments and sage advice. Plus..the scene where Tiresias tells Allen about his wife's infidelity made me laugh out loud. Yeah..I googled him. I can't help it. I Google everything.

I cried while watching K vs. K. But its freaking Meryl Streep. There's no shame in crying when its the best actress in the world doing the acting. And the kid is so darn cute. I defy any normal girl to NOT cry.

Saying Martin Scorcese makes good movies is like saying Sachin bats well. 'Nuff said about The Departed. Except that watching familiar Boston locations filmed as they have been is mildly scary.

PS: I don't know why I'm sitting through Keira Knightley's Pride and Prejudice on TV as I type this. Its the worst interpretation of P&P ever. And I've seen 4 of them. (Not including Bride and Prejudice if you please! That piece of tripe doesn't even qualify as a version of P&P.)

Recipe for Bheja Fry

Take 1 harassed grad student. Add one irritable thesis advisor demanding data for grant ASAP. Stir in a talk due by said student at a meeting next week. Cook on low flame with experiments that refuse to work when you most need them. Garnish with ridiculous seminar with inexcusably bad data that one was forced to attend, thus causing this student to develop a headache. Serve hot.

PS: I know this is terrible, but seriously, my brain is fried. Need weekend. Now.

Aawww!

I don't like dogs or cats, but these, I could so adopt as pets. After reading 20 pages of Wodehouse followed by this cutesy article, I feel brimful of sweetness and light. Bring it on experiments. Lets see what you can do to destroy my spirit this day!

Now...why'd she have to go and say that?

I was seriously contemplating watching La Vi En Rose. Mainly because I was intrigued by the tiny clipping they showed during the Academy Awards, and because Marion Cotillard cried with such artlessness during her acceptance speech. I was even willing to forgive the scaly mermaid dress. (It was way better than Kidman's vulgar display of diamonds!) But then I read this. Now, when I watch the movie I'll keep thinking she's crazy in real life too. How hard can it be for her to portray troubled? Aaarghh!

Moral of the story: Ignorance is bliss. I should stop reading the Drudge Report.

Since you can't escape the weather..

You'd much rather enjoy it. And thats what we decided to do this morning after being hit by 7 inches of snow overnight. So...its my 3rd winter here, and I'd never actually built a snowman. So, we got the carrots, muffler, cap , and shovel and decided to build one.

Discoveries made:

1). Its hard work. The layers started coming off pretty quick.

2). Its not easy. Our snowman looked rather misshapen. Like he had an inordinately large bottom.

3). Plums do not eyes make.

4). Snowfights are insane fun.

5). My landlord is really the nicest guy. For providing him with all the free entertainment, he took us to lunch. Free food. Yay!

6). We ate lunch with his sister and her electrician (for sure)/boyfriend (mere speculation) . He informed us that our snowman looked oddly shaped because you're supposed to roll the snow while making it. Damn...I should've read this before I ventured into the snowman building business.

7). Thank God we didn't go with my initial suggestion and build a snow-woman! My roommate has her uses.

Here is the final result:

I call him Earl. After Earl the electrician...my go-to guy for future projects involving snowmen. Plus, Earl fixed our heating 3 months ago, so he deserves the honor.

Stuff thats making the world go 'round...

Doubtful union of the month: First they marry, then they unmarry.
I guess when you've been married as many times as he has..its all good.

Funny new concept of the month: The funda of "orkut age". I was introduced to this concept by a friend (thanks P!) only recently. Apparently, you have a real age and an Orkut age. Mostly, Orkut ages are atleast 3 years less than real ages. Going by that mathematical formula...I'm about...Oh...21 in Orkut years. Which makes me feel really good. I like.

Seeing the world through rose colored glasses this month is: This guy who expects the Aussies to behave gracefully and win hearts.

So, Hayden is mad that Bhajji got off. Too bad. The Aussies have been getting away with sledging, "mental disintegration",and what-have-you for years. Its time they bite the bullet. They're crude, rude, bad losers and the worst sportsmen ever.

Magnanimous apology acceptor of the month: Benevolent Barack.

Funny Infomercial thats apparently been around forever, but I just saw this month: Extenze. Apparently it makes a man's nose grow everytime he tells a lie. Hacks! (Couldn't find infomercial link online. Didn't look very hard either.)

Match made in heaven of the month: They even had a big wedding!
Aiyyo! Kadavalay!

I hope this doesn't happen of the month: May better sense prevail. Darwin zindabad!

Pet Peeve of the month: Being frozen to the bone!

Pie chart of the month: Its sad that PhD comics has my life down to a T!

Who writes this stuff?

Every father has to get his daughter married: HC

For a brief, fleeting moment I pitied my poor Dad! As if societal pressure wasn't enough, he now had the law to contend with! The feminist in me was also quite annoyed that they didn't include a role for the mother in this "getting the daughter married" business.

Actually, the headline is kind of deceptive. The article is about something quite different. And not as cringe-inducing as the headline itself. Yellower than the daffodills I "wept to see hastening away too soon", whilst I was in pigtails in the 6th standard, this stuff is.

Things that made my jaw drop..

1). Oru yucky story about people who actually call themselves vampires and get off on drinking blood, which came to me courtesy the roommate. (I don't know what that child is watching on TV when I'm not around for quality control!) I have since googled this exhaustively, and grossed myself out beyond anything. Not linking because I have no wish to gross you out.

2). Leopard print dress worn by the lady who won for Best Screenplay at the Academy Awards. She had the very cool name Diablo Cody (Which I have since discovered is a pseudonym. Not as hip!), and a huge tattoo on her arm. So, small tattoos can be funky. Large ones of girls in bikinis transcend the fine line between cool and tacky, IMO.

3). Richard Gere's astonishing good looks in An Officer and a Gentleman. And what an unbelievably cheesy ending. But how romantic, anyway!

4). Mandy Patinkin's snazzy execution of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. He lit up the screen.

5). My own stupidity. I ought to get used to this, but I never cease to surprise myself. Wearing non-waterproof shoes post-snowfall ranks up there with putting my hand into the liquid nitrogen tank ungloved.

What to do when it snows...

Nature News is always worth a read. And this is just too funny. Apparently, the creators of the creation museum have now launched a scientific journal of their own. I'm quoting from the Nature article. Emphasis mine.

'On 9 January, Answers in Genesis, a Christian ministry run by evangelical Ken Ham, launched Answers Research Journal (ARJ ), a free, online publication devoted to research on “recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework”. Papers will be peer reviewed by those who “support the positions taken by the journal”, according to editor-in-chief Andrew Snelling, a geologist based in Brisbane, Australia.'

What a hoot. Oxymoronic in the extreme. I thought peer review was meant for critical appraisal. Moving on..

This is not funny. Just sad.

Since scientific news seems on the down and down this week, I was reduced to reading this piece of salacious gossip in that trashy T of I. Boring, hypocritical, Sati Savitri Rani is NOT that saintly after all! (To understand why I label her thus, you have to have been jobless enough to have watched this in entirety.)

I remember, I remember...

I think its freaky, and not a little pathetic that I remember which movie my friends (now married) first saw together, when they themselves had almost forgotten.(well...he had, she remembered after some head-scratching) But what to do...the brain is mostly fried, except for the repository of useless information. I remember the weirdest things.

I remember purposely trying to fall down and hurt myself in the park while playing. I was 4 years old, and even then I was sneaky enough to know how to angle for sympathy. I tried falling down some 2 or 3 times to no avail. Because I was too scared to fall down hard enough to really hurt myself. But eventually, my clumsiness kicked in. I fell down without trying and scraped my knees pretty badly. I don't remember receiving sympathy, though. I guess the plan backfired.

I remember that the first day I went to kindergarten (St.Joseph's, Vile Parle) I was very excited and happy. Then I saw all the crying kids. And not only did I cry, but I cried to such effect that I was sick for several days, and couldn't go to school for about a week.

I remember taking part in a fancy-dress competition when I was about 4 or 5. I wore a costume called News and Views. The front was a collage of news articles. The back was....well...a view. If I could go back in time and alter this memory with a Hermione Granger type time-turner, I would so do it. The things our parents make us do! To rub salt into my wounds, I distinctly remember NOT winning.

I remember going to the hospital to see my newborn brother wearing a brown color checked paavaadai with a white blouse. I remember staying in the hospital with my mom a couple of nights, and I'm pretty sure I remember wetting the hospital bed. I remember my brother scratched his eyes pretty badly. Early in life the violent tendencies had started to kick in.

I remember that the bus-driver who took us to school in Muscat loved the music of Roja. He played it every single day. In Malayalam. And reminiscing about music, when I was in high school, and it was not cool to listen to Roja anymore, someone used to play Roxette in the bus. I heard "Sleeping in my car" about a million times. Decided I liked it. And made my parents buy me the cassette. They played it in the car while driving back home, and were aghast at the lyrics. That was the only cassette of English pop music I ever owned! Until a friend gave me a copy of Now28. And I heard "Love is all around" until the cassette wore out.

I remember being a "prim and propah" class monitor and school prefect. Boy, was I stupid. I thought rules were important, and to talk between classes was a crime. No wonder I didn't have too many friends! 'Cos I would write peoples' names on the board. And then the teacher would come in and punish them. Such a Miss goody-two-shoes I was. Another one for the time-turner. If I could do it over, I'd be a super cool monitor who made everyone laugh and never reported anyone for minor misdemeanors. Or for that matter, for ANY crimes at all.

I remember the 9 (yes 9!) of us squeezing into a Maruti Zen in the middle of a college day (we cut class of course!) and driving to the nearby theater to watch....Yaadein. What a Godawful movie. And what an unforgettable ride. 9 adults in a tiny little car.

All these memories from a person who forgets her parents anniversary and her dearest cousin's birthday practically every single year. Un-freakin-believable! I hope I didn't make any up. That has been known to happen. Especially since its a full moon tonight.(plus a complete lunar eclipse to boot)

NB: I love all these reminiscing posts I've been dishing out lately. When I get old and senile, my grandkids can just say..here you go Grandma..read this. This was your life. And its all here. For posterity.

Romeo and Juliet: The Ballet version (updated)

So I had a friend visiting this weekend. I love it when friends visit. Mostly because I have very nice, easy-going friends who usually fall in with whatever plans I make without demur. This means I get to do stuff I've been wanting to do for a while. Like go to the ballet. I know nothing about ballet, or classical music. But I saw The Nutcracker 2 years ago, and really enjoyed it. I've been itching to air out the dress I bought to watch The Nutcracker. I only wore it the one time. So, when Boston Ballet's Romeo and Juliet production coincided with her trip, I bought stockings and we went to the ballet.

It was a visual treat. Spectacular sets and costumes. And the Wang theater is a great venue. Romeo, from what I could tell, had the requisite boyish good looks. Juliet looked ethereal. She was tiny, really. The balcony scene was pure magic. That was definitely my favorite part. For the rest, I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more ballet. It seemed more dance-drama-ish. I did get the goosebumps when Juliet's mother got all upset over her nephew's death. But apart from that..it seemed a teeny bit funny to watch them all drop dead one after the other..sort of domino effect like.

Also, I must have no soul whatsoever. Because the most inane things kept striking me through the course of the show.

Why are the men carrying cushions whilst dancing? Why does the priest carry a skull? Are those storm clouds in the backdrop? I mean seriously...Romeo and Juliet are suffering through gigantic tragedies, and I'm thinking about cushions! (Persons more erudite than myself have provided eloquent explanations for all of the above. Therefore I see no reason to label said questions as inane any longer. In fact, I have now decided that they are all very good questions.)

As a result of which the person sitting next to me had to suffer, because shutting up is not my strong point. (Since the questions weren't dumb , I reserve the right to take this back as well.)

Resolve of the month: I shall learn how to use chopsticks. Either that, or never go to a Chinese/Japanese restaurant again. I was like a bull in a china shop.

The science behind love.

Its Saturday morning. What to do when you're up early anticipating work in the lab, but find that the cells have ditched you by growing slower than they should? If you're normal, you try to crawl back into bed and sleep. If you're borderline nut-job, like me, you drink OJ 30 minutes after a cup of coffee, thus making you slightly nauseous, and you read this, (Full text is restricted access) thus increasing your nausea to puke inducing levels. So, apparently they did all these studies and found that they don't really have a clue what makes people click together as a couple. Men like hot bods, women like moolah..but its not all important. Duh. So, I understand that this is probably the holy grail of social scientists, but seriously....where's the fun in knowing?

NB: I just realized that every single Mills&Boon novel I have ever read (Yes, I've read trashy romance. So bite me.) has a rich guy falling for an extremely beautiful girl. They can't all be wrong. That must be it. Looks and money. Yep.