I a what prompted this?

Against societal norms

While running a few errands with Rin, I decided to take my glass, filled with ice & some red pomegranate drink with me (a la The Dude but without the white russian).

We went to the bank and the received a few comments. The teller chuckled that I got some of my red drink on the check I handed to him, after doing a double-take of the glass I placed on the counter. Then, some guy on line behind us chimed in with, "Is that a glass?" to which I casually replied, "Yep." He stared a little more so I concluded my comment with, "I'm starting a new trend."

Moving on, we went to Friendly's. After placing our ice cream order, I put the glass on the counter. The girl at the counter did a double take and smirked. Before she could say anything, I said, "Yeah, I know..."

The point is how people react to otherwise trivial things that are atypical. I'll have to think of something else for next time.

-Davinder

Before he was Uncle Tod...

The Third Anniversary of Mom's Death

It's here. But I still can't stand the idea that she'll never meet Austen. They would adore each other. But Austen will never really "know" or undertand what she's missed out on.

Patrick Swayze was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Ironcially, during one of my last visits with Mom, when she was still herself and not overcome by illness, she was sitting in her new yellow bedroom watching Dirty Dancing on a small TV propped on top of a dresser. It was a distraction, a carefree diversion from all the stressful cancer stuff. She had a calm, distant look on her face and when we talked she asked a lot of question about the baby and our naming ideas.

With the news of Swayze's diagnosis, one blogger wrote that, unlike other cancers, peope don't "get" pancreatic cancer, people "die" of pancreatic cancer. It's a death sentence. But why would my darling mother get a death sentence. It's still unfathomably unfair.

English Pronunciation!?!

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.




Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Paris and Bush: Both are deciders.

Paris Hilton: In the future, I plan on taking more of an active role in the decisions I make.

Da Bears!

Sesame Street Pinball - Old school

One of my favorite Sesame Street memories. Don't act like you don't remember it!



-Davinder

Dems the breaks

Dear Dubya,

Although you’ve continued to provide regular comic relief during your presidency, I’d like to extend you special thanks for helping lighten my day today. Despite the numerous projects, last minute requests (a.k.a. demands), problems, resource conflicts, vendor negotiations and meetings that seem to have landed on my desk, you and your party-mates continued to make me laugh throughout the day.

For example, remember when you said last week that Rummy would stick around for two more years but then, a week later, decided to have him resign? Well, that was great!

Also, a belated thanks for your other colleagues who regularly contradict themselves such as the “distinguished gentlemen” who helped pass laws against pedophiles while he was having improper affairs with interns…of the same sex, no less. I guess he was just trying to eliminate the competition.

Then there’s Limbaugh, you know, your staunch conservative supporter spewing his mind. Forgetting the prescription drugs or calling Michael J. Fox a fraud for a moment, isn’t it interesting how he said he was relieved today saying how he would now not have to continue to support those he thought were not qualified for the position?

Or how about the Fox News anchor reporting on the polls last night? He had the most sullen face and the saddest tone of voice as he mumbled something to the effect of this is not good news, folks. Sounds “Fair and Balanced” to me.

Oh…I almost forgot. What about the fun with the e-voting machines from Diebold? Recently, a hacker testified he was paid to reprogram them to tally the votes 51/49 in favor of the Republicans. Or what about the testing done in the past few weeks showing that despite the tester selecting the Democrat, the vote was given to the Republican? Ha…that was great!

In the words of Borat, “High five-ah!”

It’s a shame there are only 2 more years of this entertainment.

Cheers.

Mommy and Daddy keep a constant watch on Austen via a video monitor.

Here she is hugging both Pooh and Elmo at the same time.


Here she is almost settling down to sleep. She now has stuffed animals in her crib because she's over one year old.


Here she is sleeping.