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.

LAP memories OR Those were the days!

I must be more jobless than usual today, because not only have I checked the weather forecast 3 zillion times, but I've also logged into my gmail a similar number of times. Disappointingly, the forecast still says 4 inches of snow, and I haven't received a single email all day (sigh). So then I did the even more jobless thing..I logged into Orkut. Not just logged in...I actually searched and found that a community exists for Laxmanrao Apte Junior College, Pune. Now I'm flooded with all these random memories....

1). No ladies loo. I must have had better bladder control back then. Thats all I can say.

2). A strict male-female segregation policy that made little sense. And had the unhappy effect of making 18 year olds with crushes behave like 12 year olds with crushes. And also precluded any chance of making friends with the super-brainy dude who had potential as a lender of notes.

3). A physics teacher who couldn't say Boo to a goose, let alone teach a class of 120.

4). The ugliest uniform in history. Copper sulphate blue salwar kurta, with keds. Yuck!

5). A chemistry lab in which I singed my hair twice, and burnt a hole through my kurta once. (Oh, OK...this was all klutzy me. No fault of the college.)

6). A supremely funny, Laurel and Hardy type combination of teachers who taught a subject they called "Paramedical". Turned out to be mostly Preventive and Social Medicine. They even had matching names: Thube and Tapase. Thube was the social worker who had the pleasure of introducing us to the concept of Gandhian toilets. I believe we even went for a field trip to see 'em. (He made sure to tell us the one we were seeing was just for display..not in use. In case someone felt the urge to take a leak, there was another regular loo available. I'm not kidding. I wouldn't kid about something as originally funny as this.)

7). Tapase was the one with the funny bone though. He was teaching us about the mysteries of the female body. We worked our way past puberty and child-birth, to menopause. When he paused...smiled beatifically at the class, and said: Menopause mhanje men must pause, nahi ka? Unfortunately, the beauty of this joke was lost on much of the geeky class...some of whom even dutifully wrote it down. (People wrote everything down back then. Everything.) Except me and DK who laughed till our jaws hurt. But, to Tapase's credit...he always gave me and her very good marks after that day. I liked Tapase.

8). This one trek from Katraj to Sinhagadh, which began at 5.30am and ended at 2pm or thereabouts. I was so thirsty, I drank water from a frog-infested pool at Sinhagadh. I saw the frog. I just didn't care. That trek also ruined one perfectly good pair of jeans forever. The hike was beautiful in the beginning. Very scenic and all that. Lost its charm about the same time my toenails fell off. I lost the entire nails of my 2 big toes in the course of this one stupid trek. Took forever for them to grow back.

9). A trip to Matheran, where I witnessed a remarkable paratha-eating contest between 2 guys. The winner ate 16. That trip was also happening, because our train was stuck en route to Mumbai, so we got out and walked along the railway tracks to the next station. Ah..the smell! Unforgettable!

10). Last, but never the least...my favorite memory of LAP: The one in which I came closer!

Chocolat needed...NOW!

I just finished watching Chocolat. Last person on Earth, yeah..I know. All I can say is....I want chocolate. Now. And since I'm desperately craving chocolate, there's not even a Mars bar in the house. There isn't anything extraordinary about the story, or even the movie, as a whole. But when you have Johnny Depp playing a guitar, and delectable scenes of chocolate being made, do you even need a story?

Plus Juliette Binoche has a certain quality about her. She gets under your skin, quietly. The 30 second scene in which she and Depp dance is just pure, unadulterated romance. If I was a believer in Valentines' Day, I'd say this was a perfect V-Day movie. Its cute, has a very handsome hero, (I am yet to meet a girl who thinks Johnny Depp is NOT hot!) and a misguided villain who is essentially a decent person. Nobody who you expect to not die, dies. There's even an oldies' romance to warm the cockles of your heart. Its all cho chweet.

But seriously....it makes you crave chocolate in the worst possible way. Seriously.

Interview of the week

I was watching Shekhar Gupta's interview of David Baltimore on Walk the Talk. Couple of things struck me:

1). NDTV needs to hire someone that knows science (like Sanjay Gupta!) to do these interviews. Shekhar Gupta was clearly out of his depth. And he admitted it.

2).When Baltimore was asked what he thinks are the hot topics of the next 30 years he said:

a) The molecular biology of cancer
b). Gene therapy to treat diseases
c). Genetically modified foods
d). Different sources of energy
e). The process of ageing

I work on ageing and its impact on cancer biology at the molecular level..so this made me very happy. To know that a Nobel laureate also thinks this is hot stuff is good.

3). Baltimore thinks Hillary's the way to go. Apparently she's promised to double the NIH budget again. Hmm.

4). The Imanishi-Kari affair was alluded to most politely and brushed aside as if it were a storm in a teacup, not a scandal that practically ruined his career and definitely finished hers off.

All in all, an interesting watch.

Eewww!

Friday evening means its time to take stock of the weeks' literature. And after a really exhausting week in lab, what fun to read this and this. 2 articles with mild ick factors. The fertility article is plain weird. The only thing worth marveling at is the astonishing Icelandic genealogical database. And the vole paper just made me laugh. Live and learn, I say. Live and learn.

So, after I read that I had to google lobsters and monogamy. Because I saw it on Friends ages ago. Phoebe said that lobsters mate for life. Turns out thats not true either. Oh well. I should've known. Phoebe WAS a flake. Joke's on me.

Totally unrelated aside (Its because Pretty Woman is on TV as I write this): Isn't it funny how so many super successful Hollywood movies could just as well have been made in Bollywood? Case in point being the completely insufferable Titanic.

Me and my tanhayee..

Its just weird. 4.15, and I'm the only one left in lab. It has never ever happened before. The Chinese should celebrate their new year once a month, I think. Its feels peaceful. Nothing is humming, no one is saying things in a language I don't understand. Its just me and my iPod and the stupid PCR machine. I know the guy who invented PCR was a LSD-tripping genius, but just for today..I wish he hadn't done it. I could've just sat here, listened to Rafi, read random silly things on the web and just chilled out. Instead, the PCR awaits.

C'est la vie.

PS: 2 things vastly overrated in life: Work and ice-cream cake.

Aha!

House is back. Tuesday nights are so much more fun with him around. Brilliant, witty, insensitive, snarky, ruthless and very very cool. Lau him. Truly I do.

Weekend viewing

Massachusetts is in mourning after last night's shocker. Not being a football fan, I did not catch the Superbowl. Instead, I watched 1 Anthony Hopkins classic, 1 Shammi Kapoor movie and 1 absolutely wonderful, slice-of-life comedy. So...the weekend began with Remains of the Day. I always think of Anthony Hopkins as Dr.Hannibal Lecter. And he was absolutely chilling. Well, now I'll also remember him as Stevens the butler. For whom duty came above everything. There's the superb scene where Emma Thompson discovers a romance novel he's hiding under his fingers. The one sign that he has feelings. He is sentimental. He wants romance. Just not badly enough. Not badly enough to comfort a sobbing Thompson after she reveals that she is going to marry someone else (inspite of being in love with him). He enters her room to talk to her, and ends up asking her to make sure something is polished! Its a beautiful, evocative, underplayed drama. Loved it.

I was grating carrots and wanted something fun to watch. So I watched An Evening in Paris. Its one of the few Shammi movies with less than awesomely unbelievable music. Except for the exceedingly supreme Akele Akele Kahaan jaa Rahe ho the rest of the songs are okey-dokey. Movie-wise..Sharmila Tagore looks good. Pran is evil as usual. David is the good retainer. Shammi plays the charming hero...as usual. Its a less-than-entertaining caper. But when you're grating carrots...you can watch anything. Even Aaj ka Goondaraj. Maybe even Oceans 13.(which is hands down the worst movie I have ever had the misfortune of watching in a theatre. And I even watched Anil Kapoor's Rajkumar in a theatre!!)

And the piece de resistance was Juno. A dark,screwball comedy about a common affliction-teenage pregnancy, affecting an unusual girl with a weird name-Juno. Ellen Page deservedly gets an Oscar nomination for playing a smart (but not smart enough to not get pregnant!) 16 year old with a heart. She can't bear to abort the fetus because she learns it has fingernails. So she finds adoptive parents for her unborn child. For most of the movie she comes across as mature. Except for a few scenes. One where she gets mad at Mark (the prospective father) when he reveals he doesn't want a child. "But you're old", she fumes before storming away. (As if being old means you must want babies!) And when she gets jealous that her boyfriend is taking someone else to the prom, she has a little hissy fit. "I'm in a fatsuit I can't get out of!", she yells at him. But the movie is more than her stellar performance. Its about her super-supportive parents, her best friend who has a penchant for older men, her shy, but cute boyfriend who thinks she is THE best. Its about Vanessa, the desperate wannabe mom, played to desperate perfection by Jennifer Garner. And her rock music loving, cheap horror flick watching husband who bonds beautifully with Juno. The soundtrack is really unusual. And lovely. But really, the movie caught me at the very beginning. When the pharmacist tells a desperate Juno, that her"eggo is preggo". Its goofy, screwy, funny, upbeat and very watchable. So...much fun was had.

Finally...

Harsha speaks!

Thank You! I knew he would make sense. He always does.