Brown Motion

It starts with a 'Hi'.  That is a quintessential American greeting you will hear even if you are a relative newcomer or stranger in a casual or formal environment. It makes you comfortable and part of the immediate surroundings - helps you feel welcome.  It may or may not be sincere each time but it is an ice breaker. Then there is the 'high five'.  This is a groupie ritual that was spawned sometime during a game of some kind back in the seventies.  People slapping their palms against each other usually held up high over their heads. It is important to know the slang otherwise you may be found not welcome in the presence of all the palm slapping going on.  Worse if you do it wrong you may get slapped on the wrong part of the anatomy.  Not fun. Getting High.  This is quite the Osho - Bohemian - Hippie contribution to the states.  This chemically (usually) induced state of being is observed by many an amateur and pro alike - pros often have access to and knowledge

Today's world is hyper connected.  I am not so sure what it means but you hear it a lot.  It is probably hyper but not sure how connected it is.  Sugar (fermented or not) is available in many ways than before and so getting hyper is easy.  It is probably more a threat than cocaine since it is sold legally. And what is this connected stuff?  Most people I encounter seem disconnected from reality.  So going back to this assumption that we are connected there are subtle and no so subtle instances of how brands and companies and middle men try to portray someone - A linkedin profile for somebody working for X years at a place advertises to the connected network that so and so is CELEBRATING X years @ Such and Such Inc. Do we know if (s)he is celebrating or cringing?  Perhaps a better way to portray will be - So and So LASTED X years @ such & such inc. Then it exhorts the readership to go ahead and congratulate them for this lasting effect.  Really? Most folks that ar

..did I expect Johnny to do this. .. crash a plane in a wall. .. have an affair (while having another affair). .. plan her own kidnapping. .. expect to see the health benefits of caffeine. ... sue my ass (no disrespect to anyone named Susan or an Ass). What does all this prove?  There is a lot of chance involved in every waking moment.  And that waking could turn to not waking - ever! So take a deep breath and do what you really want to do - quick.  Of course if you are not around the next instant - nothing really changes for you or those around. So there is nothing here.  Just be.   Stop following, liking and texting. Perhaps I should also stop blogging?

Owning DVDs is a good way to entertain oneself.  I can re watch any movie I want, when I want, how I want.  So last night I re-watched some of the rather long run time remake of the Bond adventure - called Casino Royale -  cast with a new lead to play the iconic spy - Daniel Craig.  This viewing took place after a few years of my original viewing. I decided I like this new Bond.  I also enjoyed Casino Royale.  I think the villain makes half the movie and I liked the Danish Mads Mikkelsen (who knew Danes acted - that is part of the Bond franchise - I think - they find unusual cast to be in the film including the opposite sex) as Le Chifre a mean dude who bleeds blood through his tear duct and who believes in a 'reasonable rate of return'. Although the two installments that followed Casino Royale that released nine years ago, respectively 'Quantum of Solace' in 2008 and 'Skyfall' in 2012, were somewhat lame even for the Bondantics. Part of the lack of charm

Ratings drives content.  Ratings needs eyeballs.  Ratings means revenue.  Revenue means jobs.  So sell the sizzle not the steak. These and many such observations about media and business of news reporting in general are now de rigueur. Established and new comer agencies in the market with a mission to deliver facts keep churning meaningless drivel and sizzle it with eye catching headlines to make the reader turn the page. What amounts to eye catching also comes across as retarded in many cases - the rush to get crap into print or online bypasses common sense edits. Here are some examples or close seconds of what was recently published - Horrific site of plane crash (what a surprise - when a large object with people on board 'crashes' into hard surface from a height of 40,000 feet are they expecting a mind soothing landscape to compete with the Buchard Gardens?) So and so had an internal reproductive organ removed and may remove other parts in days to come  (PS - got

My palate has experienced a plethora of flavors and textures over several decades, some are mere nostalgia since no one seems to make these items in California.  Many we continue to enjoy through local eateries and via my better than half consort that feeds me every chance she gets. Shrikhand with Kesar - Dehydrated yogurt based sweet elixir again with hints of saffron or Kesar (the color vivid orange lent by the fragile dry anthers of a flower) Vada Pav - a chickpea batter coated and fried ball containing spicy potato and ginger paste sandwiched amid a fluffy baked goodness of fresh Pain or Pav or bread.  Accompanied on the plate by a ginger, peanut ground with chilli powder condiment called chutney.  If that is not music  to the tongue then I know not what is. Pomfret Fry - A salt water flat fish that looks like a rhombus with a distinct oily and sea water smelly nature when crisped over a pan with some rava (semolina flour on the outside) is a seafood delight.  Fish does

An American television comic made a directorial debut with this film.  His name is Jon Stewart.  While his comedy is largely political satire that I do not enjoy as much as mundane observations about the species made famous by Seinfeld, he is a razor wit and liked by many TV viewing audiences.  I might just have to watch some of his archived product esp since he has announced retirement from his show later this year. With this film Stewart has adapted a story of an Iranian Canadian journalist,  Maziar Bahari working for Newsweek magazine and covering the 2009 (re) election of Ahmadinejad as the country's ruler. Maziar is in Iran for the story and one morning gets picked up from his home by Iran Revolutionary Guard and jailed and later told he is a spy for the Western governments of Britain and USA.  Iran concludes this based on a silly interview Maziar did for a comic (while in Iran) pretending to be a Western spy. While the movie is a narrative of his solitary confinement an

As I ate some wonderful Gulab Jam (fried flour dough balls in simple syrup laced with Saffron) today I thought of some interesting and complex foods that I have had the fortune to enjoy growing up in the western state of Maharashtra in India. Each place has its tradition and food is big part of it.  Maharashtra itself has a lot of variety moving inland from the coastal plains with its abundant rice production along with what the sea offers (used to offer much more like any place on the planet) over the Sahyadri mountains and into the warm heartland farm country (or what used to be anyway). What grows locally is best had within miles of where it is produced.  That reveals the true taste of the ingredients and the art and science that went into making it. Here then are top X items that I thought of this evening over the bowl of Gulab Jams... Kharvas - to a westerner this dish is impossible to imagine - some sort of cheese perhaps is the closest analogy that one may assign it but

Boring.  While it held my attention in the first half it started to drift and become somewhat monotonous in the second.  Intriguing moments are rare and the focus seems to be on emphasizing the obviously harsh reality in which the brilliant mind of Doctor Stephen Hawking had to function whilst also overcoming the threat that his very life may be over in short order. To me emphasizing the details of a disease that is unavoidably brutal, and a given does not add anything to the experience of watching the film. The characters (lead role for Hawking and his first wife) are well played yet the screenplay gets uninteresting after 45 minutes.  The scenes seem repetitive in their sequence adding no new insights. It is important to realize that a successful person (in the case of a major intellectual force like Hawking) is not a stand alone phenomenon but a result of lot of pain and effort from a loving and caring cohort that plays a crucial role in supporting him - from his wife to his p

That is relative.  From our point of view having not encountered anyone else in this vast universe we presume that it may be so. Chances are that in fact we are not.  Here are some reasons why - Alien forms (it would be premature to call them life forms since life is just a concept we invented) have been whizzing by our planet for some time and have simply moved on nothing to see here fellas - some moronic organic matter that seems hell bent on destroying themselves every chance they get If the Aliens are indeed so advanced as to make fly bys of the vastness they are looking for something that is way unusual and not rudimentary like - Single Malt Food Student Exchange Sex Watch a Bollywood movie Smart Watches (LOL) Bio break (again - the whole funda of BIO is very earth centric - we have no idea if that is a consideration when visualizing aliens) I did not think so - hence they may simply have it listed on their itin as a passing rock (to get their bearings) - sort of

While Latin is not my forte I got to thinking if the origin of certain words had to do with the date in history when Julius Caesar was a victim of Homicide. This month - specifically around the Ides  (perhaps it happens each month - just that I happen to have time to watch the idiot box) I noticed we have quite a collection of and conversations about - Homicides  - someone murders someone else Suicides - someone murders themselves Infanticides - someone kills an infant Genocides - large group killings While I think these phrases are used by the media to sensationalize stories I think our human brain has still not evolved beyond basic hunting and gathering across the board or globe. The human brain weighs in at less than 2% of total body weight but is capable of doing amazing things.  Murdering others included. The size of the human brain in contrast to a chimp's which weighs five times more seems to be adapted to doing things smarter, what with ANOTHER SMART WATCH in t

It was 3.14.15 yesterday. The ratio (Pi) of a circle's circumference to its diameter gives 3.1415 and an infinite string of decimals - Internationally known to Math geeks as a celebratory event (once in a lifetime considering you live to be less than a 100 years old),  March 14 also is Einstein's birthday and thusly even more fun to remember and get out on your Pay (feet in Marathi). We did just that and went out to celebrate amongst the equally Pi-xated folks in San Francisco last night at the Exploratorium, whose mission is to change the way the world learns.  It was a fabulous day to be near the water where the present Science Museum is located on Pier 15. Originally started in San Francisco in 1969 at the facilities belonging to the Palace of Fine Arts (more on it later) the Exploratorium was relocated a couple years ago to its newer and more expansive digs on the piers that stretch along the city's Embarcadero. The museum provides a significant source of inspir

Few aviation firsts are in the offing this year.  A solar power only aircraft completed its maiden leg on a round the world journey this week by flying from the gulf nation of Abu Dhabi to another called Oman (ironically both nations exist due to oil revenues).  The plane and its crew of two pilots plan to circumnavigate the planet over the course of the year finishing back in Abu Dhabi. The wingspan is wider than a Boeing 747 but it is a light aircraft powered only by solar rays.  It will be an achievement in the sense of testing out the kinks of only utilizing renewable form of energy.  Not so much because of finding a way to end fossil fuel burn to prevent global warming or some mumbo jumbo but to allow the possibility that we can breathe cleaner air one day. Another first about to happen is a massive blimp will be ready for takeoff this year.  It will be the largest aircraft ever.  This is a helium filled balloon that will take off from England for a test flight.  It is likel

Nobody I have ever seen (or can remember) in the movies before was the cast of this film.  In that sense it was a clean slate to go watch.  Film was Oscar nominated.  Means as much to me as a Rotten Tomatoes rating does. Nothing.  I rate a movie based on what I think of it.  Anyway aside from the group think vs. me think debate I thought this film is entertaining and has one line that takes the prize. That line is  - 'There are no two worse words more harmful in the English language than 'Good Job'.  That is what the band director (I thought was the protagonist but the film review team thinks was a side role) tells his drummer student in a bar (as they talk about bars and brass and drums and other lingo related to music). Movie revolves around a high school kid that grew up with one parent.  Wanting to play the drums he enrolls in a NY school to be the best he can be.  While he is focused on achieving this skill he gets spotted by a very demanding band director played

Make that four down days.  As in food poisoning related downers.  As the old joke says that Diarrhea is hereditary since it runs in the jeans - I scored more runs than a good front line batsman would in cricket.  So not only did this event cause a major outage in my availability it did open up the possibility of perhaps getting by with much less food.  Intake that is. So what is the upside you ask?  I ate what I ate and yet lost 10 pounds.  In four days.  Just not eating.  Well I did literally have an apple a day.  So three apples later I am hearty on my way to become hale.  Food tasted much better once I bit into a piece of Doritos chip and swallowed some Sprite. Too much consumption perhaps numbed my taste buds is all.  A break gave it a chance to recharge.  Now more than ever would be a good time to ensure that the girth does not become excess baggage as I contemplate the long hikes in the Andes only weeks away. Being out of it for two of the four days - I slept like a baby