Random things

Pardon the radio silence, all 4 of you. It has been difficult getting out of the post-Eid slumber, especially when the streets of Dhaka are still (wonderfully) empty and the half the staff is away on leave.

Random links:

• Stuff Journalists Like
• Overheard in the Newsroom

The second has been the source of great joy for me, so imagine my unbridled glee when I found out that the official website has more quotes than the Facebook site!

275

“I’m going to jam this pen in your peehole if this happens again.”
- Editor to male cadet reporter after failing to spell check.


283

“It was very traumatizing, and that’s how it should be.”
- Editor-in-chief talking about punishments for writers

Very apt given my recent battle in the office with the only text editor who thinks that Wikipedia is the bible and that a space before a fullstop is fine as long as you do it consistently.

I tried taking in the new issue of lensculture, and nearly gave myself a heartattack. How do others keep up with all these things? Nevertheless, it was very interesting to compare-and-contrast Photoquai and Noordelicht. I vote for the former.

A bit in love with this photo by Gohar Dashti.

Post-lunch Meme

Stolen off Noelle's FB post. Because I'm still recovering from post-Eid slumber.

1.What was the last thing you put in your mouth?
Coffee.

2.Where was your profile picture taken?
Outside Rifles Square waiting for the something to happen during the BDR mutiny.

3.Can you play Guitar Hero?
God no.

4.Name someone who made you laugh today?
There are 9 more hours to go till this day ends. I'm hopeful.

5.How late did you stay up last night and why?
2 am. Because I'm a dumbass.

6.If you could move somewhere else, would you?
Dude.

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks?
Not that I remember.

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you?
Too sad a question to answer.

9. Do you believe ex's can be friends?
Evidently.

11. When was the last time you cried really hard?
A river of tears flows through me.

12. Who took your profile picture?
Munir!

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of?
A boy in a coffeeshop.

14. Was yesterday better than today?
HAHAHA.

15. Can you live a day without TV?
Evidently so.

16. Are you upset about anything?
No but I'm really bitter about most things.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it?
This quiz is getting boring.

18. Are you a bad influence?
On myself, yes.

19. Night out or night in?
In - by lack of choice.

20. What items could you not go without during the day?
I think my Mom reads this blog.

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?
A colleague.

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say?
One of my colleagues telling me she'll only be able to come back to work tomorrow.

23. How do you feel about your life right now?
Not quite real.

24. Do you hate anyone?
I'll never admit it without qualifying it with a whole host of excuses.

25. If we were to look in your facebook inbox, what would we find?
Unanswered emails.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass?
Dude.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?
I've been called a perfect moron. Does it count?

28. What song is stuck in your head?
None right now.

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m, who do you want it to be?
God. Maybe she needs a place to crash.

30.Wanna have grandkids by the time you're 50?
Odds are slim my friend.

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow?
Wake up.

32. Do you think too much or too little?
Too much.

33. Do you smile a lot?
I do when I've something to smile about.

FU 2

Why is rage funny? I don't know. But I do know I spent way too much time giggling over Fuck You, Penguin yesterday.

Damn you Jenatsch for giving me this link! As if I needed another avenue for procrastination.

Behold:

I just want you people to drink in this world-class douchebag known as the Tibetan Fox. Have you ever seen such a holier-than-thou fucking look on a non-dolphin before? I'm not one for slapping foxes, as I generally think they know what they've done, but this one really has that look, like the asshole boyfriend of the girl the main guy wants in an 80s movie. Unsurprisingly, he is extremely rare. That's probably because he thinks if he has too many babies, some of them will turn out to be commoners and he wouldn't be able to show his square face at the country club anymore.

How's your ivory tower, Tibetan Fox? I'm sure it must be terribly stressful to stand in judgment of the rest of us little people, so why don't you just retire to your cabin and play lacrosse? You know what, on second thought, WHY DON'T YOU WANDER THE DESERT LOOKING FOR RODENTS. Some of us have to work for a living, Tibetan Fox. We don't get everything handed to us by a lifetime of hunting and scavenging, you stuck-up snob.

20 Years of Drik

Also the reason why I've been incommunicado.

20 Years of Drik

Twenty years.

How does one articulate a history spanning two decades in a few lines? The truth is, you can’t. Which is why we are sharing with you some of our proudest moments in the best way we know how - with images.

Far Eastern Economic Review

Time Magazine

Care International Annual Report

OXFAM Annual Report

This exhibition is not about the number of years that have passed, but the milestones achieved and the battles won. It is about the new paths we have forged from the unlikely location of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh.

While we try to show cherished snippets of our past, there are others that we have to keep in our memory. The people who have helped us, the mistakes we made, the things we had to believe in with all our heart - these things are more challenging to visualise, but just as important.

Drik was set up to be a platform for voices from the majority world, and on this special occasion, we are proud to introduce the first in the Golam Kasem Daddy Lecture Series.

Twenty years.

For some, it could seem like an eternity. For us, this is just the beginning.

Jeev and I were up too late writing this, and I think we became a bit delirious after having to find synonyms for "celebrate" "proud" "milestone" and "achievements" at 2am in the morning.

Also exciting: Raghu Rai arrives at 4pm!

Not so exciting: The 'W' key fell off my keyboard.

Sequence of Unfortunate Events

- Cold -
- Blocked Nose -
- Blowing Nose -
- Occasional Vertigo -
- Blowing Nose With Gusto -
- Blocked Inner Ear Canal -
- Constant Sensation of Either Being Half Deaf or Living Inside an Echo Chamber -
- Deteriorating Sense of Balance -
- Blocked Ear & Blocked Nose -
- Cold -

It is amazing how a blocked inner ear canal can render my brain totally inoperational.

Mini Milestone #28394

Latest in the series of Meaningless Milestones: Today I blew my nose too aggressively and achieved vertigo.

Like!

Used to get irritated at Starbucks when I would order a small and be told "Sorry we don't have small, do you mean tall?" Which would then require me to clarify if, by 'tall', you mean the smallest size you have? Oh it does? I'll have a small then.

Should just make an effort to memorise pretentious Italian and save us all some grief.

Looked out for Ponyo, but doubt I'll find it here anytime soon. Its likely we'll get the Hollywood version, but I don't know if that will offer the original Japanese audio track.

I remember someone buying me the Totoro DVD as a gift (evoking great happiness) but then I played it and it turned out to be the dubbed Hollywood version (evoking great sadness). There is just something very wrong in watching a Miyazaki film in English.

Happiness Equation

Big Lightbox + Hundreds of Slides + Time

My uncle himself told me about how he once awoke to a crushing sensation on his chest, and it was only by reciting prayers that he managed to drive the evil spirit away.

I'd heard variations of the same story from different people of different religions, about this evil weight that would sometimes seem almost suffocating, but always terrifying.

Turns out, they'd all been experiencing "a piece of REM sleep."

Freaky Sleep Paralysis: Being Awake in Your Nightmares

By Alexis Madrigal [August 7, 2009]

In sleep paralysis, two of the key REM sleep components are present, but you’re not unconscious.

Narcolepsy, which can be linked with sleep paralysis, has a similar pathology. For narcoleptics, some of the elements of rapid eye movement can “come out of nowhere,” he McCarty said.

Sleep paralysis was first identified within the scientific community by psychologist Weir Mitchell in 1876. He laid down this syntactically old-school, but accurate description of how it works. “The subject awakes to consciousness of his environment but is incapable of moving a muscle; lying to all appearance still asleep. He is really engaged in a struggle for movement fraught with acute mental distress; could he but manage to stir, the spell would vanish instantly.”

But the condition lived in folklore long before anyone tried to subject it to even semi-rigorous study. The various responses have fascinated some researchers and they were cataloged in the 2007 book, Tall Tales About the Mind and Brain. In Japan, the problem was termed kanashibar. In Newfoundland, people called it “the old hag.” In China, “ghost oppression” was the preferred nomenclature.

A study released earlier this year found that more than 90 percent of Mexican adolescents know the phrase “a dead body climbed on top of me” to describe the disorder. More than 25 percent of them had experienced it themselves.

Give it a couple more years, we'll soon figure out the scientific rational for the orang minyak.

Update

Pause. Stop. Play.

Off 2 war. Brb.

For real.

NEW DELHI, Aug 5 (bdnews24.com/Reuters Life!) - Mahabharata, the ancient epic about princes, demigods and a cataclysmic war is getting a makeover on Twitter -- 140 characters at a time.

Chindu Sreedharan, a U.K.-based lecturer, is retelling the Mahabharata using the micro-blogging service, hoping to lure readers with creative snippets posted in chronological order.

A sample tweet [twitter.com/epicretold]:

I didn’t understand many things. Yudhistira said. I was slow and stupid. But if father was a king, why were we living in a forest lodge?

3:19 PM Jul 28th from web

I want Pride and Prejudice tweeted.
"Darcy looked hawt 2day."

Right back at ya

Continuing from previous post and many thanks to Tym, who sent me this lovely report:

"This study shows that in egalitarian countries there is less social stigma attached to men doing what was traditionally women's work," she said in a statement.

"This leads to men in egalitarian societies taking on more of a domestic role so the likelihood of forming a harmonious household becomes greater, resulting in a higher proportion of couples setting up households in these countries."

Duh.

But while women seemed to prefer a man who would put out the bins and do the washing up, men were not so keen on women seeking a partner who wanted to split the chores, preferring a woman they could rely on to do all the housework and childcare.

"While egalitarian men seem to be viewed as a better bet by women, egalitarian women are seen as a less safe bet by men," she said.

So I look forward to our PM's speech at the next gathering of male leaders, during which he will tell these successful men about how they their success shouldn't come at the "unintended" price of an ageing population.

Unintended Consequences

Found it hilarious that our PM took the opportunity to bring up falling birth rates at an "international women's conference".

Their desire to advance their careers, be leaders in society, enjoy life and see the world can get in the way of their desire to get married and start families, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday.

'By the time they have dealt with all the other pressing priorities...it may be too late and too difficult,' he told more than 600 people attending an international women's meeting.

Wonder how all those women from the Apec Women Leaders Network felt.

I'm not about to debate about the matter itself, but I just think it would really suck if I showed up for a women leaders' meeting only to be told that my success had this huge "BUT" attached to it. Ladies, its really fantastic that you're empowered and successful and all that, but its still not enough.

The ducks in the bathroom are not mine.

HOW did I not know about this man?

Tanjong Rhu

Tweet from popaghandi/skinnylatte led me to this:

Film by Boo Junfeng, to be screened at upcoming Indignation at the Arts House on August 14.

Really, really want to watch this. =(

Sadness is an Lemak-less Existence

Sigh.

Love it

Movie MONSTERS Size Comparison Chart

Via Ffffound!

Update

At that other place. Click!

Should make a collection of all the doodles I draw while I'm on the phone talking to someone. The more nervous I am on the phone, the more expressive the doodles become.

How funny is it that part of my job is now to tell people to give me MORE MONEY PRETTY PLEASE.

God help us.

Cats Use Special Purr to Manipulate Humans

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

July 13, 2009 -- Cat owners who think their cats control them now have some scientific confirmation: Animal vocalization experts have just identified a special manipulative purr that felines have evolved, in part, to get what they want from people.

... Cats purr to each other, but the scientists found felines really exaggerate their solicitation purring when communicating with humans, making felines near impossible to ignore.

Something new

Because I frequently see things that I'd like to remember, and because I have a memory that's just as useful as a soggy box of matches, I'm starting a new blog to collect all the pretty pictures I like. Behold:


Pause. Stop. Play.


As if I needed another thing to waste my time on.

Hero for the Day

Delicious.

Came across this lovely post in the comments section of the article about Thio Li-ann at Inside Higher Ed:

An Open Letter to Dr. Thio Li-Ann
Posted by Jim McCurley , Class of 2010 at NYU Law on July 8, 2009 at 2:15pm EDT

I read your recent e-mail interview with Inside Higher Ed with some interest. It seems that you may be a little concerned about what awaits you at NYU this fall. As a gay person and a law student, I wanted to take the opportunity to reassure you and to welcome you to the university. I’m not sure if you’ve been to New York before, but I gather from your CV that you got a quite a fine education in the UK. Because of a few phrases you used in the interview, it occurred to me that you may not be familiar with some peculiarities of American English and I want to point out a few that may come in handy. First, we call chips “french fries” and crisps “chips.” Second, we generally call Members of Parliament “elites” and law students, well, “law students.” We don’t really use the word “diktat” a whole lot.

New York being New York, you may also find a few Yiddish words to be useful. Foremost among these is “chutzpah.” “Chutzpah” is hard to translate directly and its meaning is perhaps best illustrated by example. New Yorkers would say that a former NMP and graduate of Cambridge and Oxford who denounces gays in a rather vulgar manner on the floor of Parliament in a successful bid to enable their imprisonment calling the highlighting of her remarks by a few law students “ugly politicking” based on “their own prejudices, from whatever sources” has a lot of chutzpah.

Now, having grown up in a farming village in Kentucky and spent a number of years in the enlisted ranks of the Army, I share your distaste for both “ugly politicking” and “elite diktat.” As I’ve been called a “faggot” and been beaten up a few times, I don’t care much for “bullying” either, although I’m not sure having one of one’s own Parliamentary speeches circulated really qualifies as such. This may be yet another peculiarity of American English

You are quite correct, however, that in the face of bullying, one must have courage. It also helps to have supportive gay friends. One of the nice things about gay folks is that we tend not to belong to either the “liberal camp” or “communitarian camp” which you described in your speech. We’re just into camp. Likewise, the gays at NYU don’t by any means have a problem with you, your right to your views, or academic freedom. We just don’t think that state power to imprison or discriminate against sexual, racial, or other minorities is a particularly “academic” question. Again, that’s American English for you

Another generally appreciated feature of the gays is our sense of taste, which has been highlighted in television shows like “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” You are a bit mistaken if you think that the gays at NYU want to censor you. It’s just that, like mixing polka dots with plaid or having George Wallace teach a course on civil rights in the American South, we tend to think NYU’s hiring you to teach a class called “Human Rights in Asia” demonstrates a lack of taste.

Dr. Thio, if you’ll have me, I’d like to be your supportive gay friend. We can have lunch, dish about men and listen to music together. I know a great tapas place in Greenwich Village and, as an American, I’d like to disabuse you of the notion that I have any interest in “refus[ing] to engage with dissenting views” or directing “intolerant animosity” at you. There are also a few great American songs I’d love to introduce you to. One of my favorites is called “Cry Me a River.” It was written by Arthur Hamilton.

I must make one friendly request before I let you go, however. We American gays are doing fairly well post-Lawrence v. Texas. Unlike our Singaporean brethren, we can’t be arbitrarily thrown into prison and can generally defend ourselves under the law. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for our friends, the straw men. From “human right to sodomy” to “Americans … appropriating the rhetoric of human rights … [to] impose their views on a sovereign state,” you’ve spent a good deal of time knocking them down. Last I checked, they hadn’t done anything to you, so why not go a bit easier on them?

All the best,

Jim McCurley
NYU Law Class of 2010