How Can I Tell If I Have Swine Flu?

Are you completely worried that you might have the Swine Flu?

Click on the link below (courtesy of colleague Matt Matyas) for some easy instructions and information on how to deal with this pandemic.


LINKS

DoIHaveSwineFlu.org

The King Really Is Dead

While Rafael Nadal was out-Tigering Tiger Woods and out-Rogering Roger Federer (the dude just won two major clay-court tournaments for the fifth straight year, the Monte Carlo Masters and the Barcelona Open), Federer was not-so-quietly imploding.

Nadal's match record for 2009 is 33-3, with four titles including the Australian Open, and two Masters Series tournaments (including the big one at Indian Wells).

He has a 25-match clay-court winning streak. He already has 35 ATP titles (going an astonishing 35-9 in finals). He has 14 Masters Series titles. Since 2005 he is, wait for it, a ridiculous 142-4 on clay.

Roger is 18-5 this year. If you take last year's US Open out of the mix (which is looking more and more like a fluky win), then he hasn't won a tournament of note for about two years now.

Two years!

It just breaks my heart!

I will ruminate about this in great length later, but for now check out two excellent articles looking at what happened to him.

So sad, so very sad!


LINKS

Newsweek: The Federer Fade
BleacherReport: Roger Federer Struggles in His New Tennis World

Old Guys Getting It Done!

Yup, oldies-but-still-goodies Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya put on a clinic in the Mumbai Indians thrashing of my beloved Kolkata Knight Riders yesterday in their IPL match.

Sachin scored 68 from only 45 balls and Jayasuriya kept pace with a blitzkrieg 52 from 32. Between the two of them they had eight 4s and eight 6s!

In reply, the erstwhile Prince of Calcutta Sourav Ganguly tried his best with a 30-ball 34, but Calcutta had no shot.

As Cricinfo said, Sachin and Jayasuriya "with a combined age of nearly 76, treated Port Elizabeth to the cleanest, purest exhibition of batting that this season of the IPL has seen."

Talk about old guys getting it done!


LINKS

CI: Tendulkar And Jayasuriya Overwhelm Kolkata

Be Still My Beating Heart

Okay, so Sylvester Stallone has put together the best cast, ever! for his upcoming The Expendables (memorably nicknamed Inglorious Old Basterds by SlashFilm).



I am talking about Randy Couture, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Eric Roberts, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, and the great Jason Statham.

Then came word that the fantastic Danny Trejo was joining the cast.



And then came word that Robert Rodriguez has finally decided to make that fake Machete trailer from Grindhouse into a real movie!

Oh my God!



In the meantime, mark your calendars for 23 April 2010 - that's when The Expendables explodes on to screens!



LINKS

Variety: Robert Rodriguez Wields Machete
SlashFilm: Danny Trejo Joins The Expendables

I'm Not Sayin'...

...but I'm sayin' that The New Yorker usually knows what it's talkin' 'bout:

Top 5 Worst Tweets Ever

Great little article on Silicon Alley Insider (or is it The Business Insider) on the Top 5 Worst Tweets Ever.

My favorite was the one about the recently-hired girl who slammed her future employers, who found her not-so-flattering tweet and fired her. The company, oh, a little outfit called...Cisco.

Wait, shouldn't I be talking about this on Twitter? Or should it be "Tweeting on Tweeter"?

Kids these days...


LINKS

SAI: Top 5 Worst Tweets

More Disco Dancer

More Disco Dancer



Here is a summary of the plot from IMDB and Wikipedia:

An aspiring disco dancer (Jimmy) vows revenge on an underworld boss (Oberoi) after the boss beats his mother (Ma) after the dancer defeats the boss's son (Oberoi Jr.) in a disco dancing competition leading to the son's nervous breakdown. To make matters worse, the boss then mistakenly kills the mother after rigging the dancer's electric guitar to 5,000 volts of pure electricity.

Now, the disco dancer must fight the boss's goons, his new manager's (Mr. Brown) skepticism, his own guitar phobia, and (perhaps most importantly) strong competition from Team Africa and Team Paris at the International Disco Dancing Competition to exact his revenge and win the heart of the boss's beautiful daughter (Rita).

Here are some choice quotes from the classic movie (courtesy of Wikipedia):

"Don't you know the difference between green room and bedroom?" - Mr. Brown

"He's got guitar phobia. A guitar killed his mother." - Oberoi

"The bastard's killed seven people in London. And there was a very famous singer... I don't know his name, but he murdered him too. The bastard's a top class criminal." - Goon to Oberoi

"These are the tears of a popular famous artist." - Jimmy

"Come, sing, and conquer!" - Mr. Brown

"Mother, I have my music. I will sharpen this music like a sword and stab the city's heart with it." - Jimmy

M.I.A. And Disco Dancer

Disco Dancer

You know that really catchy M.I.A. song, "Jimmy"?




Well, the entire backbone of that ditty is comes from a song in the classic Bollywood film Disco Dancer.

Disco Dancer was released in 1983, at the height of Bollywood's Brown-sploitation phase, and featured the talents of two of the greatest Bengalis ever to work in mainstream Indian cinema: the music maestro Bappi Lahiri and the great actor Mithun Chakraborty.

Here is a video of "Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja"...somewhere my friend Andre Koutouza is smiling.




Why? Apparently this was a huge hit in the former Soviet Republic when he was growing up.

Vodka and Mithunda...now that is the way to make it through a Russian winter!

Don't Let This Dog Near My Bags

My colleague Mark "_mC" Contreras's little Daschund Peanut is apparently missing out his true calling: Security Dog.

Click on the link below to check out the awesome video!

LINKS

Peanut The Security Dog

It's True...I Own A Cat

Some interesting animal psychology insight per The New Yorker:

Hey There Bo

Great shot of President Obama jogging with his new puppy Bo on an "trial" visit to the White House on 15 March 2009.



Apparently, there is some controversy about whether Bo truly is a rescue dog or not. I think FOX News is going to have a field day with that.




LINKS

AP: Is Obama dog a rescue or not?

This Is The Way I Like To See Tiger...

...In the woods, so to speak.

After losing out to "The Duck" (a.k.a. Angel Cabrera), this is what the erstwhile Greatest Human Being Alive (Tiger Woods) said:

"I fought my swing all day and was just kind of band-aiding it around. And [I] almost won the tournament with a band-aid swing today."


And that's it, that's all he said. This is exactly the kind of curt, post-loss interviews that has made Serena Williams such a gracious loser.

Stay classy Tiger, stay classy...

Slumdog basu!

Courtesy of my old friend Erik Tarui.

Nice job, apparently he used an old photo of me he found online of me directing my student short. Sigh, remember those days...

Finally, Proof That I'm, You Know, A Photographer

Pretty amazing huh?

That's my little sister Chhoto, taken a week before her French wedding at Giverny, the home of a little painter we like to call Claude Monet.

LINKS

Giverny Official Site

Wikipedia: Giverny

You Would Be Happy Too..

 

Sometimes All Your Cat Wants To Do Is Surf...

And then she sees the end of poor Roger Federer and even she has to look away...

Well America, Change Has Come!

Transcript of the Inaugural Address of the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama:


My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Inauguration Day

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

A New Day Dawns!

Sometimes Being A Rebel Is Overrated

Courtesy of The New Yorker:

OMG It's New Year's Eve Already?!

I just was not prepared this year and they're already celebrating in India!

Here, then, are the perfect words to ring in 2009:


"Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles (words and music by George Harrison)

Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun, and I say

It's all right



Hope 2009 is a great one for you!


LINKS

NYT: World Bids a Relieved Adieu to a Rocky Year