Yen n Yang n Dollars n Francs

Talk about catch 22s.....I get less rupees for my dollar each going month....of course, the indian equities i buy with those rupees have not been doing any good either...and of course, i do not have enough dollars to invest in the US of A...

The Europeans are having a field day here...travel through NYC airports on any weekend and you see hordes of them going back with their weekend shopping - yes..shopping in New York is cheaper than shopping in UK or swiss, (flight and hotel charges included)....and NYC hotels now offer "shopping packages".

The other day, my colleague met a couple at an NY Outlet Mall. They were lost in their shopping and missed the last transport back to their hotel and were looking for a lift. So here are the numbers he got: they bought stuff for $3000, which would have cost them $8000 back in their place...flight and hotel is just a 1000 - they still save 4000 (or make more if they sell it back there?)

same goes for many south american countries - we were visiting an airline in brazil, and were asking some guys there whats a good place to go shop in the evening, and most of them said "New York" !!!

What about US shoppers in Europe? really at the wrong end of the stick :) found this the hard way last week, when some "constants" like a McD burger cost $10 and a bottle of water cost $8 (to a guy used to buying 12 bottles for $3)

like the wife says "paapi chellunnidam paathaalam" or "wherever the sinner goes, its always hell"

Extreme Exits early on Super Tuesday...

There have been exit polls..and there have been exit polls...and it is early morning SUPER TUESDAY, the Democrats and Republicans are fighting it out internally in around 24 states today.....and we get to see some real "newsmaking" happening on TV....

Channel 1: "....we now go over live to 'small town 1' in New Jersey where our reporter john doe is standing by......
john doe: "it is around 6:30 am now...and voting has been in progress since 6 am today.....so far we have observed half a dozen people go in and cast their votes....i have been conducting my own exit poll here, and out of the 4 people I surveyed, it shows a wide and interesting mix for the candidates among this cross section of New Jersey's voting population..."

Channel 2: "...we now go over live to 'small town 2' in Massachusetts..." - display switches to the outside of a brick building and stays there for 30 seconds...not a soul in sight....not even a leaf twitches for those 30 seconds (not that there are any leaves on the trees this winter to twitch)....and comes back to news(making)room..."...stay tuned and we will have more live coverage as it happens right here throughout the day...." and we go into a well deserved commercial break....

Little Superstars

SEE



FOLLOWED BY


(and the best part is the wife got this from her lab colleagues, who had no idea who the big superstar in the video is)

Who Whistles ?

Lunchtime discussion on "parampara" and similar pre-mix gravies and a colleague mentioned this incident...

well, before that, let me explain how these mixes work....if you get a malabar chicken mix, the pouch will have everything you need for the gravy (includes oil, salt, EVERYTHING). You take chicken, add the mix, add water, pressure cook for a couple of whistles, and eat it....

back to story: a canadian friend went to the indian store with our colleague, found the concept interesting, took a pouch home....late evening our colleague gets a call...
"... it says wait for 2 whistles....who is supposed to whistle? the chicken? or should i go ahead?"

Kachi Kaliyan & Subtitles

We watch a lot of Hindi and Malayalam DVDs with the English subtitles on. If the movie gets boring, there is a likelihood of finding something interesting in the subtitles at least.

In the old days, it was star movies with hindi subtitles, where "what the F**K happened here" on the audio became "he bhagwan, ye kya hua??" on the subtitles...

And occasionally you come across some amazing work of translation - the local dialects in OMKARA got translated beautifully to some english slang in the subtitles.

But this one takes the cake - translating a meaningless song without compromising its meaninglessness takes some knack...

(from the song kachi kaliyan na todo.... from laga chunari mein daag)

now, don't go plucking buds
or the gardener will kick your butts

ladies, we beg your pardon
we are here for the whole garden

gardener, your blossoms are too cool,
row after row like a flowery spool

we are hungry bees so lovesick
we'll gladly get our butts kick'd

....

Web Activity

Saw a "Web History" link on i-google homepage - clicked on it, and i am not sure if i was amazed or scared by what i saw - every item i searched on google, google maps, orkut, or any other googly stuff....since early 2006, what i got as results, what did i click on, where did i go....trend charts on that...other stuff i "might" be interested in because of all these searches......what time of day did i search...which day of week did i search most.....like i said - i dont know if i have to be amazed or scared :)

Running in the Rain

This is the second of my "small childhood frustrations" - i think i already wrote about the first one long long ago - none of my classmates believed the schoolbus was doing 60 km per hour when we were passing the milestones (kilometerstones rather) about one a minute :)

this is another - not just childhood, but right through every rainy day of my life in kerala :)

i always thought i got less wet if i walked through the rain, rather than ran through it....but NOBODY believed me - ever...it was always "get out of there"..."run to the house"....the usual... i played in the rain a lot..but when it was about getting from here to there, i was NOT playing around....i just knew i got less wet walking that running....(i do admit i liked the fact that i could spend more time out in the rain)....

well - caught a mythbusters episode the other day, and they were testing just that - do you get more wet walking, or running? and what do you have? u get almost 2wice as much wet running than walking....

i rest my case....and thank you mythbusters....you will appreciate how much this means to me if you ever spend some time in my hometown :)