Based on certain observations I have made in the last few days, I have concluded that the most common new year's resolution in the United States must be to loose weight. Yes, I know. It should be obvious based on just looking around at people and estimating their average size. But in order to implement my new year's resolution, I will tell you anyway.
These days, the only time I get to watch TV is when on the treadmill at the gym. And what channel I end up watching is entirely determined by what TV I end up standing in front of. I try for CNN but am mostly unsuccessful these days because for some reason it is only on 1 TV at my gym. So this week I have watched MSNBC, STYLE, A&E and ESPN respectively and not at the same time of the day as I go whenever I feel like it. And every time, at least 60% of commercials I saw (I only counted today, but am extrapolating for the other days I did not keep track) was for either a diet like Nutrisystem or some exercise product like the rather obnoxious looking ad for Shake Weight.
Then there is the fact that my gym is full of people that I have mentally labeled "new year resolution type". They are identified by having two or more of the following attributes: a) they ask questions like how the towel service works or where the day use lockers are, b) have long conversations about weight loss citing their own past experiences or those of others they know, c) show up wearing clothes that are decidedly uncomfortable if you are going for a primarily cardio work out which most of them do.
Let us hope for the future of the health care system that most of these people stick to their resolution!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Important first step
Even though this will probably not hold in the long run, the Delhi High Court's decision to rule that consensual gay sex is not criminal is a very important first step in bringing India into the 21st century in terms of civil rights. I am happy.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Instant News
In the beginning of the Wikipedia era, I was careful to judge the reliability of the stuff I read there by looking at the attribution, and when an attribution was absent, do some googling of my own and when that fails, take that information with big pinch of salt. But over the past few years, I do this a lot less. This story is an interesting wake up call!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Today on CNN
Today, my day started earlier than normal. The reason being that the only way I will be able to get any physics done this week is to do it before the rest of the world wakes up [1]. So, I got hungry for lunch early and hence went for my pre-lunch treadmill run early as well. I run in front of a TV that is tuned to CNN headline news.
Today due to the odd time I ended up watching something called “Showbiz tonight” where I learn t such earth-shattering things as the fact that Kristie Alley apologized on Oprah for being fat, the bay watch dude David something got drunk (with some statement like “this gives him the opportunity to lead America by example toward taking responsibility for one’s addictions”) and some dogfighter guy whose name I did not catch is going to join PETA or something. I just have to say WTF? [2]
[1] I am part of the organizing committee of a conference that starts in a couple of weeks and I have been doing such interesting things as arranging for food, getting stationery, juggling schedules and so on…
[2] If you feel like it you can watch the videos of the first two stories here and here. Did not catch enough of the third story for a quick google.
Today due to the odd time I ended up watching something called “Showbiz tonight” where I learn t such earth-shattering things as the fact that Kristie Alley apologized on Oprah for being fat, the bay watch dude David something got drunk (with some statement like “this gives him the opportunity to lead America by example toward taking responsibility for one’s addictions”) and some dogfighter guy whose name I did not catch is going to join PETA or something. I just have to say WTF? [2]
[1] I am part of the organizing committee of a conference that starts in a couple of weeks and I have been doing such interesting things as arranging for food, getting stationery, juggling schedules and so on…
[2] If you feel like it you can watch the videos of the first two stories here and here. Did not catch enough of the third story for a quick google.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Time 100
Under the list of artists and entertainers, my man A. R. Rahman was there. I was happy. Then I looked at the list more carefully and saw that the likes of Rush Limbaugh were there on it as well. Now I am not so happy…kind of like grouping a genius and a “geniass” under one heading…
Friday, May 1, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Asians need simple names
This story makes no sense at all...But we immigrants must try and comply right? So....
My Betty Brown Approved Name is LaVerne "Lynard Skynard" Brown.
Take Betty Brown Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.
Rebirth
This blog had been in a coma. It was not dead. Now it is regaining consciousness. Go web2.0!
The reason for the silence was that I was in a transition point in my life. I have been a post-doc for a while now and had to make the transition to getting a real job, in my case that of an Assistant Professor. I was running around making applications, and then interviewing and then agonizing till the offers started showing up then agonizing after that to pick among the different ones I had.
Now the decision is made. I am at peace. And I thought I will celebrate the peace by reactivating all of the other things in life that had been in limbo. If you are one of the people that still has this blog on your feed reader, thanks for not deleting it yet.
The reason for the silence was that I was in a transition point in my life. I have been a post-doc for a while now and had to make the transition to getting a real job, in my case that of an Assistant Professor. I was running around making applications, and then interviewing and then agonizing till the offers started showing up then agonizing after that to pick among the different ones I had.
Now the decision is made. I am at peace. And I thought I will celebrate the peace by reactivating all of the other things in life that had been in limbo. If you are one of the people that still has this blog on your feed reader, thanks for not deleting it yet.
Monday, October 20, 2008
On Caffeine
Suppose you wanted to get a caffeine fix to get your day going, prolong it longer than you planned or just pep up your afternoon a bit, what do you do? Drink a cup of coffee or tea, may be some chocolate, and on really bad days may be an energy drink (think Red Bull in my case). Did you know that you could take a shower instead? Or in the winter, get your fix from your chap stick? I almost wish I was bold enough to try it!!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
A R Rahman ad jingles
In spending time with my feedreader this afternoon, I saw this, featuring a clip from the movie Slumdog Millionaire that apparently has music composed by my man ARR. It is the first I heard of this movie. I am way behind on my Rahman listening. I was stuck on Jaane tu ya jaane na for a long time. I have just moved on to Sakkarakatti, am yet to open my Ada CD (I know, Sakkarakatti jumped the line, but it was in Tamil, so that was inevitable). And it also got me thinking that I have not yielded to my Rahmania in a while. So, I spent some time that was to be used to finish a calculation googling around for A R Rahman ad jingles that I remembered from a long time ago. Find below a few for your amusement :
1. Garden Sarees
Featuring Lisa Ray and sounding so Rahman:
2. MRF tires
I actually did not realize this was Rahman until recently actually:
3. Premier
This one is sung by Sujatha, you know the one that sang “puthu vellai mazhai” in Roja:
4. Titan
And of course the famous one that has Rahman paraphrasing Mozart for Rajiv Menon:
And finally the bonus video of anyone that made it this far down the post, Baby Rahman on Surabhi
Trigger any nostalgic memories that you want to share? Pointers to any ads that I missed (I know the leo coffee one, but it featured in an earlier post), or trivia about the ads featured here would be great too!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Amusement
Came across this joke recently. Should resonate with anyone that has TA'd a basic science course:
A college physics professor was explaining a concept to his class when a pre-med student interrupted him.
“Why do we have to learn this stuff?” he blurted out.
“To save lives,” the professor responded before continuing the lecture.
A few minutes later the student spoke up again. “Wait– how does physics save lives?”
The professor responded. “By keeping idiots out of medical school.”
Monday, September 8, 2008
LHC linking park
The Large Hadron Collider comes online on the 10th and there is little else that is the topic of conversation at any place where there are more than two physicists. Higgs or no Higgs? That is the first thing we will know. And supposedly a whole lot more.
As with all else in the world, LHC has been associated with theories that tell you that the world will end when we turn the machine on. You can find out about these concerns from the horse’s mouth here. And I also came across this refutation/explanation by Sunil Mukhi (via).
If you wanted to know more about the LHC, you could try this. Or at 8pm on the history channel tomorrow there is a show on the LHC that I must have received 10 emails telling me to watch. The host of the show talks about it over at Cosmic Variance.
Or, you could watch this video I found recently…LHC rap…pretty cool I thought it was…
Friday, September 5, 2008
On names
A short while ago I learned from Bongo what the name “thong” means in Australia and that got me thinking about names and how contextual they are and how they have evolved in my mind. Let me take food for example, Capsicum has been replaced by green peppers, red peppers etc, lady’s finger by Okra. And peppers no longer stands for the round black things you put in pongal or molagu rasam. I have to think hard to remember what I used to call an eggplant, the word Brinjal has totally dropped out of my mind.
There used to be a time when any piece of paper whose purpose was to clean I called a tissue. Now depending on the location in my house it is present in, it has a different name, and when somebody refers to a paper napkin as tissue, I cringe. I cannot bring myself to say the word “rubber” any more. I call it the eraser, even in my mind.
What is surprising about this whole thing to me is that within a relatively short time, under complete immersion (in that to everybody else in my environment that fat purple vegetable is an eggplant), with no conscious effort, our brain adjusts and rewires so that we start thinking that way too! Adaptability thy name is the human brain?
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Reentry – 2 On Sabbaticals, superstitions and other things
It turns out I am superstitious. Before you yell at me and say “You are supposed to be a scientist damn it!”, let me explain. My poor little blog has been abandoned without any attention from me for more than two months. This is not the first such sabbatical I have taken from blogging. I have done this at various times in the past, because I fell in love with my brandy bottle, or with books or with some problem that was so all consuming that I had space in my mind for little else. And every time I come back from such a sabbatical I have a post that is so predictable that I might as well have used this to generate the post. Incidentally I tried and got this:
“Wholy smoke I just realised I have not updated this since they invented sliced bread... You would not believe how insane my life has become. Please don't abandon me!.
I am overwhelmed with sleeping my way to the top, commitments, just generally being asleep, dreaming and chancing to my employer, my day is full to overflowing from 4am to 11pm at which point I fall asleep on the couch. I am totally exhausted. but who cares.
I promise I will blog more regularly. Honestly! Don't hold your breath though, you're likely to turn blue..”
And then, I develop writer’s block and don’t blog regularly at all. And this latest sabbatical is the longest of them all. So, my superstition suggests that the fault lies in the nature of my “re-entry post”. So, this time my reentry should be different. No “Oh, I’ve been so busy”, and “Many post coming up” etc. This time, only action. First steps have been taken. Now all is going to be well from this time forward! [1]
[1] That is the comfort of a superstitious world view you know. You can make such outrageous statements and believe in it as well!
“Wholy smoke I just realised I have not updated this since they invented sliced bread... You would not believe how insane my life has become. Please don't abandon me!.
I am overwhelmed with sleeping my way to the top, commitments, just generally being asleep, dreaming and chancing to my employer, my day is full to overflowing from 4am to 11pm at which point I fall asleep on the couch. I am totally exhausted. but who cares.
I promise I will blog more regularly. Honestly! Don't hold your breath though, you're likely to turn blue..”
And then, I develop writer’s block and don’t blog regularly at all. And this latest sabbatical is the longest of them all. So, my superstition suggests that the fault lies in the nature of my “re-entry post”. So, this time my reentry should be different. No “Oh, I’ve been so busy”, and “Many post coming up” etc. This time, only action. First steps have been taken. Now all is going to be well from this time forward! [1]
[1] That is the comfort of a superstitious world view you know. You can make such outrageous statements and believe in it as well!
Friday, August 29, 2008
Reentry -1 Ode to my brother
Today is my brother’s birthday. He is a very special person to me. But, we are Indians and more than that, we are Tam Brams. So, to pick up the phone and say “I love you da” is completely unthinkable and totally unacceptable. So I am going to do something even more horrible. I am going to use this very public forum to express what should be some very private thoughts!
Dear AB baby [1],
Unlike you, I do not have any vivid memories of us together as children. If I try to think about it, I see a flash or two of unrelated things, when I was in sixth standard, you and I on our bicycles going to the shop near Adyar depot to buy a gift for our parents, and one of us (you or me?) falling of the bike at the signal, the time we went “hiking” in valparai and came back with leaches in our shoes….
I remember we fought like cats and dogs as long as we lived under the same roof. I remember thinking you were very different from me. I remember hating it when my friends would ooh and aah about how cute my brother is. But that’s it.
Today, I see that of all the people on earth, you are the one that is most similar to me. Given that we spent 24 hours of every day for 15-16 years together, I guess one should not be surprised. We have a special relationship. It is not like we tell each other everything. It is not like we do not get on each other’s nerves at all anymore. It is not like we are not sufficiently different from each other. We are, due to our respective unique experiences these last 10-15 years. But somehow, you are one of the few people in my world I can pick up the phone and call irrespective of how black a mood I am in. And that my dear, makes you one of my best friends. And my life would be that much bleaker if you were not in it.
So, the bottom line is I am glad our parents choose to put in the “effort” to make you and not just stop with me!
Happy Birthday!
[1] No, my brother is not Abhishek Bachchan, though he claims to look like a Hrithik Roshan, albeit with a Marathoner’s body, instead of the bench-press freak one.
Dear AB baby [1],
Unlike you, I do not have any vivid memories of us together as children. If I try to think about it, I see a flash or two of unrelated things, when I was in sixth standard, you and I on our bicycles going to the shop near Adyar depot to buy a gift for our parents, and one of us (you or me?) falling of the bike at the signal, the time we went “hiking” in valparai and came back with leaches in our shoes….
I remember we fought like cats and dogs as long as we lived under the same roof. I remember thinking you were very different from me. I remember hating it when my friends would ooh and aah about how cute my brother is. But that’s it.
Today, I see that of all the people on earth, you are the one that is most similar to me. Given that we spent 24 hours of every day for 15-16 years together, I guess one should not be surprised. We have a special relationship. It is not like we tell each other everything. It is not like we do not get on each other’s nerves at all anymore. It is not like we are not sufficiently different from each other. We are, due to our respective unique experiences these last 10-15 years. But somehow, you are one of the few people in my world I can pick up the phone and call irrespective of how black a mood I am in. And that my dear, makes you one of my best friends. And my life would be that much bleaker if you were not in it.
So, the bottom line is I am glad our parents choose to put in the “effort” to make you and not just stop with me!
Happy Birthday!
[1] No, my brother is not Abhishek Bachchan, though he claims to look like a Hrithik Roshan, albeit with a Marathoner’s body, instead of the bench-press freak one.
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