"to iraq and back"

is the title of bob woodruff's video diary of his experience of reporting in iraq and then being injured and recuperating. it was on abc last night and if any of you have a half hour to spare, click this link and watch it. it is a very well done piece on his struggles, but also the frustrations of the larger population of soldiers who are undergoing the same process. it was heartbreaking to see the situations they and their families face. it never struck me until just now, that 20 years from now, there will be a slight dip in the number of veterans who saw active combat, but 50 years from now, we'll have a huge number of vets that will need support, and i wonder if our government will be equipped to handle it.

good, but long

the fourth annual oscar party was last night and it was a lot of fun. as for the show, i thought it was okay - the pacing was off, it was too long, but i actually liked parts of it - overall, ellen was funny and enthusiastic. the shadow puppets were cool, and i loved will ferrell, jack black and john reilly. the montages were too long, they give away too many random awards during the show, and they've got to cut the annoying "behind-the-scenes" peek with that dude from mtv. anyways, wanted to post some pics of the food, there was too much of it, but i had a good time experimenting/making it all:

singing gymrat

so, i just noticed today that i (silently) sing along to my ipod when i'm at the gym. i think some people totally stare when they walk by, and while i'm as paranoid as the next person, i hope it's because i look like i'm talking to myself and not some other reason. i'm also hoping i'm not making weird faces as well... eeek. also a caveat, i can't truthfully call myself a gymrat, but i'm aiming, as part of my pseudo-lent observance, to become a partial one in the next couple of months. wish me luck!

congratulate me

it's My Future Husband with the extended family back home.... :)

city streets, sunday 9 am

saw a mo rocca lookalike walking early this morning and was taken aback. i loved rocca when he was on the daily show, i just thought he was hilarious with his slight lisp, nerdy glasses and, of course, zany humor. but, what is he up to now? i have no idea where he is or what is keeping him busy these days.

chocolate!

the apartment smelled like delicious chocolate twice today - first i made some no-pudge fudge (basically fat-free brownies.. .which, despite the paradoxical sounding name, is actually pretty good)

and then we baked a two-layer dark chocolate cake for a friend's party. and even though we used a box mix, it was fun to be slightly domestic for a while. mmmm, mmmm, good!!

oh goodness

tim hardaway, the former nba player, recently gave a radio interview where he said he hates gay people and that they should not be allowed in the world. the comments came after the public coming out of first nba player. the nba has now barred hardaway from activities surrounding the all-star game, though he has since apologized for his comments. but, what is the deal with this? what is wrong with people that they say these things? ideally, we could stop them from thinking it as well, but i'm a practical person, that will take more time. but don't people who could potentially be role models understand they have to live their lives with a little more respect for what they say and do (i'm talking about michael richards, isaiah washington, britney spears, mel gibson, marv albert, bill clinton... the list goes on and on)

hehe

saw it on their website yesterday, it made me laugh!

in the words of grey's

seriously? seriously! no, seriously.

21 months and counting

election '08 is less than two years away, and it's already the top news story of recent days. obama and romney declaring, hillary and rudy gaining leads in polls, it's all very interesting. i don't really know where the race is going now, but it seems like there are several very un-electable personalities: obama, clinton, giuliani, mccain, bloomberg, romney... all of these people seem to have major obstacles which they will need to overcome in order to be elected president. but then again, maybe it always seems like the candidates are longshots in the beginning, and by the time they've won their party ticket, they've all apologized, conformed, and melded into this unrecognizable mold of a moderate liberal/conservative politician.

whirring around

went to see "because i said so" yesterday and can i tell you, i've rarely seen such a horrible movie (though the king kong remake could rival it). seriously, overacting in abundance, and no real plot line whatsoever. diane keaton plays a "helicopter" mom, one who hovers over her youngest daughter regarding her single status. all the characters criticized her for that trait and even the audience is asked to see her as meddling. i didn't realize till later, but i think many indian girls (and perhaps boys also...) have lived with moms like that. i don't mean to imply that my own mother is that manic, but there is definitely a tendency to worry about the eventual marriage. diane keaton puts out a personal ad for her daughter and vets the first-round herself, letting only one guy eventually get in touch with her daughter. what is this, if not an arranged "marriage" process? it was just very interesting to think that the movie basically disguised a situation that routinely occurs in many indian households! obviously, there are many indian children who rebel against the process, and no one would enjoy being deceived as happens in the movie, but i wonder if cultural differences play a part in the acceptance that parental involvement in the husband hunt is a likely thing.

ringless no more

so, the colts won the superbowl last night, thank goodness. nothing against the bears, in fact, had they been playing the pats, i would have rooted for them to kill brady's bunch. but, in the end, peyton manning and, more importantly, coach tony dungy, were able to walk away with the win. for manning, it was the culmination of a career marked by too many near misses. as for dungy, i have rarely seen a coach handle himself with as much as grace and class as he has. but how much fun was the game? the rain was just ridiculous, it made the entire game a joke - like 4 fumble turnovers, grossman couldn't keep the ball and runners just slipping everywhere...

anyways, i came across this little passage in a sportswriter's article. i just thought it added a bit of interesting info to the whole story:

"Two and a half hours before the Super Bowl kickoff, when the stadium was practically empty and neither team had yet come out to warm up, one solitary figure stood near the end zone, firing touchdown passes to a couple of his receivers who had joined him to play catch.

The man was dressed in all gray, with no jersey or helmet. He stood in an imaginary pocket. Sometimes he rolled out. He lofted passes to the corners. He hit receivers cutting across the middle.

You had to look twice to make sure who it was. The man taking the extra work turned out to be the one person in the game who didn't really need it.

It was Peyton Manning."

mathletes unite!

i went to see a great off-broadway play today. victoria martin: math team queen follows a popular girl who joins the math team to avoid getting detention. of course, she has an untapped gift for math, and she quickly learns that there's more to geeks than just retainers and klingon... though barely. it's a cute, funny show, with really great performances. the actors portray high school teens in a realistic way - a combination of angst, humor, and resilience. i also loved that they dropped stuff from the ceiling - it is my way favorite thing for plays/musicals. it never ceases to instill a sense of childlike wonderment that i could reach out and actually touch little pieces of the show!

and no, i wasn't on the math team... that would be science olympiad instead, thank you very much.

friday night at fedex

tonight after work found me walking through a somewhat shady part of town to pickup a missed package. i had felt sad at the prospect of spending even part of my friday night at such a lame place, but was, of course, rewarded with an extra long stay. they couldn't find my package for about half an hour so i ended up sitting it out in the store. i thought i'd be the only person to be at the fedex during the last half hour it is open, but, first, a south asian guy comes in with tons of little packages. then a british couple - he with slightly fruity shoes, she with a chic coat - comes in and retrieves a packet. then another man comes in to ship boxes of something that could be dubious, medical waste/experimentation, to be quickly followed by a black guy, scrolling through his blackberry, while also pulling cd cases out of his jacket pocket. finally, an eastern european man walks in to mail something and starts pulling out random papers at the box counter. now, while i'm sure the rundown seems slightly crazy, it was just interesting to think that these people, who seemed to come from very different walks of life, all had late evening business to do at a random fedex on the westside. and who knows where the packages they retrieved were from or the destination of the packages they sent off - it struck me as a really small world or one with infinite possibilities.

just around the bend

hp7 will drop on july 21st... a mere five and a half months from now. i am so excited, but also somewhat sad at the prospect of losing the feeling of anticipation for another book. still, harry potter and the deathly hallows promises to be an exciting book, though i must reiterate my belief that she must not kill our main boy... actually, i think i better say our main man, have you seen those recent pics of daniel radcliffe? they're so disturbing. now, i happen to think the kid is a little cutie, but dude, i don't want to see him even close to partially nude. but, let's just say that i am being forced to, as these publicity shots have been all over the web lately, can i just say two words - fake tan. please.