me-jhantu-nahi-hoo

NFL: week 14 picks

2011-12-11T02:31:00.000-05:00

Like:

BRONCOS -3.5 over Bears
Giants +4.5 over COWBOYS
Colts +16.5 over RAVENS
BENGALS -2.5 over Texans
TITANS +3.5 over Saints

If forced to choose:

Bucs -3 over JAGUARS
Niners -4 over CARDINALS
Falcons -3 over PANTHERS
LIONS -10 over Vikings
Bills +7 over CHARGERS
Patriots -7.5 over REDSKINS
Eagles +3 over DOLPHINS
SEAHAWKS -10.5 over Rams
Raiders +11.5 over PACKERS
JETS -10.5 over Chiefs
Browns +14 over STEELERS

End of an era?

2011-12-08T12:13:00.002-05:00

All over?

The Stats:

Career history
College: Tennessee
NFL Draft: 1998 / Round: 1 / Pick: 1
Debuted in 1998 for the Indianapolis Colts



Indianapolis Colts (1998–present)
Roster status: Active
Career highlights and awards
11× Pro Bowl selection (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) 5× First-team All-Pro selection (2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009) 3× Second-team All-Pro selection (1999, 2000, 2006) 4× AP NFL MVP (2003, 2004, 2008, 2009) 6× AFC Player of the Year (1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009) Indianapolis Colts All-time leader (Career Wins, Passing Touchdowns , Pass Attempts, Pass Completions and Passing Yards) Pro Bowl MVP (2005) Super Bowl Champion (XLI) Super Bowl MVP (XLI) 2× AFC Champion (2006, 2009) Fastest ever to reach 50,000 yards passing Fastest to 4,000 completions NFL 2000s All-Decade Team Other awards and honors
Career NFL statistics as of Week 5, 2011
Pass attempts	7,210
Pass completions	4,682
Percentage	64.9
TD-INT	399–198
Passing yards	54,828
Passer rating	94.9

Loltastic Novermber hand, Bayou city trip

2011-12-07T21:17:00.003-05:00

Playing the devil's game aka Pot-Limit-Omaha on the Merge network, $2/$4 with antes about 180bb deep

PL Omaha $4(BB) Replayer
SB ($404)
BB ($1,018)
CO ($727)
Hero ($1,003)

BB antes $0.80
CO antes $0.80
Hero antes $0.80
SB antes $0.80

Dealt to Hero T 4 T 3

CO raises to $12, Hero raises to $24, fold, fold, CO calls $12

FLOP ($57.20) 8 T 2

CO checks, Hero bets $40, CO raises to $175, Hero raises to $580, CO raises to $702 (AI), Hero calls $121

TURN ($1,462) 8 T 2 A

RIVER ($1,462) 8 T 2 A 5

CO shows J A 4 A
(Pre 69%, Flop 32.0%, Turn 90.0%)

Hero shows T 4 T 3
(Pre 31%, Flop 68.0%, Turn 10.0%)

Hero wins $1,460

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Off to new orleans the next two weekends , to play the Bayou poker challenge, schedule:

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Harrahs Theatre at Harrah's New Orleans

The WSOP is back at Harrah's New Orleans with the 2011 Bayou Poker Challenge! See below for booking info and tournament schedule.
HOTEL ROOMS & RATES @ HILTON
$84.00 SNGL/DBL
1-800-445-8667 RESERVATIONS
ROOM RESERVATIONS DUE BY 11/22/11
FOR DISCOUNTED RATE. CODE: HWR


Tournament Schedule

THURSDAY	8-Dec 12PM (STS) SINGLE TABLE SATELLITES BEGIN SINGLES $45 $65 $125 $240 $540 $1,025 6PM $200 + $30 MEGA (WIN BUY-IN CHIPS)
FRIDAY*	9-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 POT LIMIT OMAHA 8PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
SATURDAY*	10-Dec 1PM* $500 + $50 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 8PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
SUNDAY*	11-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
MONDAY*	12-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
TUESDAY*	13-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 PLO w/$100 REBUY 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
WEDNESDAY*	14-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
THURSDAY*	15-Dec 1PM* $300 + $40 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 5PM* $200 + $30 PLO FREEZEOUT 6PM $300 + $40 MEGA MAIN EVENT 7PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
FRIDAY	16-Dec 1PM $150+$25 MEGA FREEZEOUT 4PM $100+$25 W/$50 REBUYS MEGA 6PM TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS (7 MAIN EVENT SEATS) 7PM $300 + $40 MEGA FREEZEOUT 8PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM 9PM $100+$25 W/$50 REBUYS MEGA
SATURDAY	17-Dec 1PM $1500 + $100 NLH MAIN EVENT 3PM $200 + $30 LAST CHANCE NLH 8PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM
SUNDAY	18-Dec 12PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM (LADIES) 12PM $100 + $25 NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM (SENIORS) 50+ 1PM RESTART MAIN EVENT

Will be playing most of the weekend biggies and of course the main event, houston peeps any off you want to drive/fly together DM/PM by tom afternoon.

Hopefully wife doesnt go croc-catching again like last time ;)

Pretty cool

2011-12-04T16:00:00.001-05:00

Wonderful shadowgraphy with Calcutta

Still love this one

2011-12-04T04:44:00.000-05:00

Happy 30th

2011-12-04T04:36:00.001-05:00

Happy 30th birthday to the girl who made being a catholic schoolgirl fun all over again.

In other news finally getting BBC world service documentary radio, wooooohooooooo

Nut best street musician

2011-12-02T12:33:00.003-05:00

I do spend a lot of time listening to guys like this, still remember a couple of dudes jamming and improvising like hell on smells like teen spirit at a tunnel in OKcity bricktown.

Unfortunately I and majority of the populace usually spend little time noticing these, case in point : One of the premier violin players in the world Joshua Bell playing in the subway for 45 minutes, 1097 people passing by and only 7 stopped to listen. He collected $32.17 (excluding $20 from one, the only, person who recognized him)

Trivia : the violin he is playing is worth 3M !!!!

Peekaboo

2011-06-17T16:10:00.001-04:00

COMING SOON

YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH

2011-05-25T10:26:00.000-04:00

BOOM: The true story of the rise of online poker

2011-05-21T01:56:00.002-04:00

Trailor of "BOOM" chronicling the rise of online poker and how it has touched the lives of millions of people.

I could be a facebook noob, BUT ..

2011-05-18T10:44:00.000-04:00

Once abhored now adored(?)

2011-05-16T16:15:00.001-04:00

An excellent piece in Tehelka on the enigma that is Ekta Kapoor, she of the kyonki saans variety and she also of the Ragini MMs variety

Ekta Kapoor will see you now

It’s not surprising that the saas-bahu girl is now making edgy movies about dirty weekends, argues Nisha Susan

Photo: The Times Of India Group © BCCL

THE INTERN is sniffy. When she was hired, she’d thought Ekta ma’m was going to ask her for ‘creative inputs’ into the TV shows. She isn’t at Balaji Telefilms to do “just this”, she gestures vaguely at the office around her with Facebook-weary hands. Does she watch the shows? No! She is horrified. “I keep telling my sister. How can you come home from work and watch them? These shows are for aunties.” What does she watch? Roadies. Reality shows.

A little later, two young TV writers enter the common room. For the next two hours, the plainly dressed men earnestly discuss how to establish a new character’s attributes without making her too simplistic. They’re speaking in Hindi, writing in a mix of Hindi and English, stroking their chins, looking limpid. There’s none of the cynicism that makes the average non-viewer smirk about saas-bahu shows — that enormous meteor shower that Ekta Kapoor created before she turned 25. Those shows changed television, fashion, weddings and claimed a giant space in our popculture history.

To those who haven’t met her, Ekta is a parody — just like her shows are to those who haven’t watched them. Her multiplying rings with soaring gemstones, her many gods, her easy success, her sexual orientation, her cell phoneflinging tantrums, her obsession with astrology and the letter K, her jogging with a phone-toting retinue — everything has become as legendary as her show’s aesthetics. In the vast plains of online fan forums, viewers address complaints directly to an omniscient Ekta — “Ekta, I didn’t understand this part. Why did the vampire bite Pia?”

Wedged between a huge executive desk and a wide sideboard blurred by god paraphernalia, Ekta says, “I used to be a human being. Now I am folklore.” At 35, she combines her infamous bluntness with a kittenish voice. A few years ago, she took to wearing a gemstone that she says helped with her temper. Before you can start wondering if any male producer in Bollywood ever worried about his temper, she adds with a grin, “It helped only 40 percent though.”

Ekta is the face of the production house she runs with her mother Shobhaa Kapoor. She’s been at it for 17 years now. But since 2008, there’s been a new regime of streamlined budgets at Balaji under Puneet Kinra, the group CEO. Ekta herself has welcomed the iron shoes Kinra wears to prevent Balaji from floating off in a swirl of zardozi. Just as importantly, there is now more senior management to ease Ekta’s burden, if she so wishes — which is still a matter of debate inside Balaji — of signing off on every last detail on every last show.

‘All astrologers try to meet me. They think I’ll fall for anything. I’m not so stupid. But in the astrology world, I am Mallika Sherawat,’ says Ekta

The old habits are interesting to watch. The entire seven-storey building is galvanised from the ground up when Shobhaa Kapoor’s car is spotted down the street. Whiteboards listing the week’s tasks also list ‘Jeetuji’s trip to Hyderabad’. Ekta’s movie star father Jeetendra is promoting the group’s next film Ragini MMS. When writers talk of Balaji investing in their writers, of Balaji refusing to change scripts to please the channel suits, they gesture unconsciously in the direction of Ekta’s office. “You will know when she is here,” the intern says wanly.

THIS IS the room where underconfident writers come to die. Kapoor’s meetings are often protracted and chatty. Working with her requires you to recognise when she shifts gear, and then business is suddenly concluded in a concentrated 10 minutes because she knows what she wants. Ekta’s nose for what viewers will like is formidable. Smriti Irani, star of Balaji’s flagship Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, remembers the 25- year-old Ekta Kapoor insisting on casting her in the face of much opposition, saying, “This is my Tulsi.” And later agreeing with Irani that she should cry as she wanted — face-distorting, ugly tears — not the glycerine prettiness the director wanted.

Her intuition is partly shaman. It is partly an endless interest in details. Althea Kaushal, writer of Balaji’s hit vampire teen show Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahani, says, “The thing about Ekta is this. You throw her a plotline and she gives you inputs. A month later if you haven’t incorporated her inputs, she’ll spot it right away. She’ll remember exactly what she told you in spite of having meetings all day long. That’s scary!” This is the same Ekta who jokes about how she was once an undereducated couch potato. She’s somehow turned the two traits of a TV addict — a fragmented attention span and obsessiveness — into a creative dynamo.

When media critics first caught sight of the young woman making those shows that appalled them, they must have paled more. Her orange-tikka’d religiosity was going to take the country back into the Dark Ages, they warned. Ekta has always been unapologetic and amused by this nervousness. A nervousness her parents share. “They are religious, not spiritual,” says Ekta. “They do pujas and all but they worry about me. They keep saying, you are so young. Why do you go to temples?” She adds, “Astrologers keep trying to meet me, they think I’ll fall for anything. I’m not stupid, I think through things. [But] in the astrology world, I am Mallika Sherawat.”

Walls have eyes A still from Balaji’s Ragini MMS

Photo:Deepak Salvi

Ekta talks with delicious, sensual enjoyment about alternately seeking passion and calm on her pilgrimages, saying things like: “Tirupati Balaji and I have a bond. When I go to suprabhatam, I get sucked in by his aura. I love him.” Or “Kamakhya is wonderful.” Or “Ajmer Sharif is very calming. Soothing. I prefer the Sufi saints to the Hindu ones.” She speaks with the same thick relish about everything. Of her favourite goddess Kali, she says, “She rides a wild boar because it’s the wildest animal. She feels a little remorse only when she has her foot on a man’s head.” She adds with a smirk, “So she is feminine too.”

Her parents may not get this desire for spiritual uppers and downers but they are, by all reports, workaholics like her. Milan Luthria, director of Once Upon a Time in Mumbai, admires Ekta for being the rare producer who’ll pitch in when the director is alone and beleaguered. He talks fondly of Ekta and her parents for being able to do long hours, endless trips and casual stopovers in small towns. All three combine enormous drive with a gift for being relaxed. “They are happy. It’s rare,” he says.

Which perhaps explains why Ekta never tries to present a picture of Happy Families to the public. She and her mother have raucous fights at work, knowing that when they get home the fight will have to be (and can be) dealt with. Some years ago, she moved out but ended up moving back home in a few months, saying she was too dependent on her mother to run her own household. Ekta says candidly that she and her actor brother Tusshar Kapoor give each other a wide berth to keep their relationship stable.

ONCE, 35 of the top 50 shows on air were Balaji Telefilms creations. Then in 2008, everything went pearshaped. Star Plus, the network that had bought all her shows, decided to take Ekta’s iconic Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi off air. An outraged Ekta sued the channel unsuccessfully and the show’s eight-year glory run — 1,800 episodes — ended in a hiccup.

Ekta had adored the idea of producing a Mahabharat that focussed on Draupadi’s dealings with the Pandavas as modern relationships. Her Mahabharat on 9X had perfect bodies and a colloquial idiom, but some audiences mumbled it was too realistic and not BR Chopra, others complained it wasn’t realistic and not HBO. It failed, along with the channel.

Meanwhile, audiences were spurning saas-bahu shows for the charms of reality TV and shows about rural girlhood. Balaji was reduced to having just four shows on air in 2008. The new flock of shows like Balika Vadhu that came then frankly surprised Ekta, who says about them, “Forget getting into them, I didn’t get them. Child marriage and women beating their daughters-in-law. I’d never seen anything like it.” Balaji announced a net loss of Rs 14 crore for the quarter ended March 2009. It was as if the evil vamp had wormed her way into the heart of the family and thrown Ekta out.

The channels who didn’t anticipate this new wave condemned them as regressive, but Ekta is humbler and says, “I felt it was a gap in my experience that this rural reality was not something I knew anything about.” And suddenly it clicks. However anachronistic, those zardozi family dramas were, in the end, urban. They were about urban joint families that Ekta had watched as a stealthy outsider. They were as urban as the young people for whom Balaji is making movies today.

And as TV will teach you, you can’t keep a good woman down. Balaji is now more professionally run — and profitable again. Today, it has four shows on air — all youth-centred with an individualistic ethos. Pavitra Rishta is the top show in the country, while Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahani has the highest ratings on Star One. The TV business is chugging along, but Ekta says she’s more energised now by her films division.

Above the heads of the restless intern and the earnest writers, Balaji’s films division is a place of efficient people with thin, gentle smiles and hair in thin, gentle spikes. Balaji Motion Pictures produces stylish mainstream aspirants like Once Upon a Time in Mumbai and Shor in the City. More interestingly, the films division’s ALT brand is gathering attention for edgy films like Dibakar Banerjee’s Love, Sex Aur Dhokha, this week’s Ragini MMS (a horror date film) and soon Dirty Picture (a biopic about Silk Smitha).

This is not the wild swing in taste that Ekta watchers claim it to be. It is, in fact, consistent with her focus on urban storytelling. Ekta has added up two facts since 2008: 1) Young urban viewers do less and less appointment TV viewing and prefer to download shows or set aside weekends for movies. 2) There is urban life outside Mumbai. She recounts her happy surprise at attending cool house parties in Chandigarh and meeting articulate young people in Guwahati.

PhD theses and newspaper columns keep condemning TV shows as regressive and anti-women. They don’t get the radical appeal to viewers in their making women protagonists central, even if in slo-mo. Ekta has made no secret that the men on her shows are merely eye candy. In a 2007 episode of Koffee With Karan, she fake-leered her way through a description of casting cherubic Hiten Tejwani and the suave Ram Kapoor for different age groups of her women viewers. “Indian women are not worrying about ‘Why’d you say that to me at dinner?’” she told Johar. “They’re worrying about their in-laws.” The critical contempt hasn’t been towards Ekta’s shows, it’s been towards the minutiae of women’s domestic lives.

She laughs at silly allegations that her films are all about sex. “Today, no one needs to go to the movies to watch sex. You can download any amount of porn for free. Movies need to talk about young people’s lives in the language they use. About relationships. Money. Sex.”

The culture has changed in the 17 years Ekta has been at work. We are equally at ease with mata ki chowkis and dirty weekends. She observes with pleasure how, increasingly, Indians are now more comfortable in their skin. In the end, this is what is most attractive about Ekta — her desire to live in multiple worlds and let others do the same.

Nisha Susan is an Assistant Editor with Tehelka

Dots connected

2011-05-02T16:05:00.002-04:00

The Royal blow : v2.0beta

2011-05-01T14:29:00.000-04:00

The royal blow

2011-04-29T20:18:00.000-04:00

The blog must be nearing its shelf-life and retirement plans are probably gonna be postponed

2011-04-15T15:32:00.001-04:00

Internet gambling sites owners charged with fraud

NEW YORK | Fri Apr 15, 2011 2:49pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The owners of three of the largest Internet poker companies operating in the United States were accused on Friday of tricking regulators and banks into processing billions of dollars of illegal Internet gambling proceeds.

Eleven people including the owners of Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and PokerStars were charged with violating U.S. anti-Internet gambling laws, according to charges filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

The charges are part of a crackdown on Internet gambling in the United States, where it has been illegal since 2006.

In March, Wynn Resorts Ltd said that it had entered into a partnership with PokerStars, and that they would work for passage of U.S. legislation that would define illegal Internet gambling.

The first ladies

2011-04-12T16:25:00.001-04:00

The day after:

From L-R (Deborah Kirsten, Sakshi Dhoni, Anjali Tendulkar)

Factoid: you can tell that sachin is about a decade younger than his wife

AS D-day in Mumbai approaches, we remiss and we hope

2011-04-01T16:26:00.003-04:00

Those in houston: theres a big game-time party tonight, so come prepared and BYOBeer, we shall get all the beeches tonight bro

Just sayings

2011-04-01T10:11:00.004-04:00

Prison is peculiar. All the pros are cons.
If you are what you eat, I'm dead meat.
"Behind every successful man is a woman who didn't marry me." ~Al Bundy
Recently, my Visa card was stolen. Now it's everywhere I want to be.
A nice way to fire someone is to throw them a surprise going away party.
Some people say I'm a dreamer, others say, “If you fall asleep at work again we’re going to have to let you go."
I've found the secret of happiness - total disregard of everybody.
Still waiting for Google Earth to have a layer that shows lost Marlboro packs.
My wife is always talking on her iPhone. Doesn't she know it has games?
I liked you when we first met but, since then, you've talked me out of it.

View

2011-03-31T12:27:00.002-04:00

Intense poetry and mental stalking should solely be reserved for that one special unrequited love.

Keep that kindle busy

2011-03-31T11:17:00.000-04:00

Crime writer Ian Rankin shares his five favorite literary crime novels, from James Hogg’s masterpiece to Ruth Rendell. Rankin’s new novel, The Complaints, is out now.

Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
By James Hogg

This book has been haunting me since student days. It has been an influence on Scottish literature and certainly on my own Inspector Rebus stories. Set in pre-Enlightenment Scotland it concerns a young religious zealot called Robert Wringhim. Convinced by his preacher guardian that he is a member of “the elect,” Wringhim then meets a charismatic stranger by the name of Gil-Martin who convinces him that they should dispatch anyone who has strayed from the path of righteousness. But who is Gil-Martin really? Is he the Devil, or a figment of the anti-hero’s fevered imagination? Very little is what it seems in this complex novel. Nemesis seems to be coming in the shape of two unlikely female detectives, but the fates have other plans for Wringhim. A psychological horror story, this also works as a novel of stalking, grooming, and serial killing.

Bleak House
By Charles Dickens

Dickens spins a yarn crammed with mysteries, unexplained deaths, blackmail plots, and courtroom drama. There’s also plenty of satire and a serious exploration of the ties that bind us all together. The main mystery concerns the parentage of Esther Summerson. A lawyer called Tulkinghorn may hold the answers, but there’s also a landlord with the all-too-apt name of Krook, a mysterious tenant called Nemo, and the enigmatic Lady Dedlock. Spinning a web to trap all of them is the extraordinary figure of Inspector Bucket. Bucket owes something to a real-life French detective of the period, Vidocq. Vidocq was a master of disguise and intuition, a man who seemed to appear from nowhere and know everyone’s innermost secrets and desires. He is, then, the template for many fictional detectives to come.

The Driver’s Seat
By Muriel Spark

When I wrote my first Inspector Rebus novel, I was supposed to be studying towards a PhD in the novels of Muriel Spark. This incredibly slim, satisfying, and surreal slice of modern gothic is my favorite of hers. Lise is a woman from northern Europe, who decides on a holiday in the south. We first meet her as the assistant in a boutique tries (without success) to sell her a non-stain dress. Lise, it transpires, is a “victim” looking for someone to end her life. She wants the fleeting fame that comes with a shocking murder. On her travels, she hopes she will meet the right man. But is she then the victim, or is she in the driving seat? The clever, subversive Spark takes the reader down a gentle but inevitable slope towards hell. Is our fate pre-ordained? How much free will do we have? Like Graham Greene before her, Spark, a convert to Catholicism, wants her readers to ponder the big questions.

The Name of the Rose
By Umberto Eco

Eco’s brilliant deconstruction of the traditional crime novel wasn’t actually published in English until 1983 (in a superb translation by William Weaver), but literature students knew it was coming. Some us wondered if the literary theorist’s first novel might turn out to be a bit dry, a bit too serious. We shouldn’t have worried. The Name of the Rose is a playful homage to Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie and many others. It also manages to be an engrossing mystery in its own right and a fascinating historical re-enactment. The action takes place in a Benedictine monastery in northern Italy. The year is 1327 and a Franciscan friar by the name of William of Baskerville arrives with a young novice called Adso. They are there for spirited debate, but a series of gruesome murders takes place and William must use his intellect, learning and intuition in order to solve the crime.

Live Flesh
By Ruth Rendell

In truth, I could have chosen any one of Ruth Rendell’s many novels, but this was the first I read. I had just left university and moved to London with the mad scheme of becoming a full-time novelist. Rendell remains the crime writer’s crime writer, never content merely to hoodwink the reader with red herrings. Often she dispenses with the “whodunit” element early on, because her real interest is in human motive and the aspects of society which make criminal behaviour possible (and sometimes inevitable). Live Flesh concerns an ex-con whose life seems to have been a series of accidents and wrong turns. Can he exert any control at all over events, or is each step of his journey pre-determined? It is a question many of the other writers in this list have wrestled with. The best crime writers have always explored not only our deepest natures but the nature of society itself. I think that’s why so many of us keep reading crime fiction.

Bleed Blue but do it for Poonam Pandey

2011-03-30T17:50:00.001-04:00

Model Poonam Pandey to bare all if India wins WC

After Paraguay model Larissa Riquelme, who promised to run naked through the streets if Paraguay won the football World Cup, an India [ Images ]n model plans to do something alike if India beats Pakistan and goes on to win cricket's showpiece event.

Cricket-crazy model Poonam Pandey says she will bare-all if the Indian team wins Wednesday's semi-final against the neighbours at Mohali.

According to reports, the city-based model, has decided to go nude in front of the entire stadium if India ends up winning the World Cup.

Claiming she is just trying to motivate the Men in Blue, Pandey said she even won't mind giving the team a private show in the dressing room if they win.

She added that she does not have qualms of even undressing in the stadium, if the law permits, and after permission from the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

What better motivation does Dhoni [ Images ] and his men need to conquer the world!

Nanonoko

2011-03-22T00:04:00.001-04:00

A great mini-documentary on randy "nanonoko" lew, one of online poker's greatest grinder

Remembering Chernobyl

2011-03-18T15:34:00.002-04:00

As the Japanese fight tooth and nail, heres a look at how Chernobyl looks today:

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

“The sign on the road to Pripyat, the town where the workers of the nuclear plant lived.”

The bridge of death

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) via: BoredPanda)

“After the explosion at Reactor 4 the people of Pripyat flocked on the railway bridge just outside the city to get a good view of the reactor and see what had happened.

Initially, everyone was told that radiation level was minimal and that they were safe. Little did they know that much of the radiation had been blown onto this bridge in a huge spike.”

They saw a beautiful rainbow coloured flames of the burning graphite nuclear core, whose flames were higher than the smoke stack itself. All of them are dead now – they were exposed to levels of over 500 roentgens, which is a fatal dose.

P.S.: note that the photo above is made from 2 different photos (top photo of the reactor and bottom photo of the bridge in Pripyat joined together)

Schools

(Image credits:misterbisson via: BoredPanda)

“Deserted secondary school near Chernobyl, Illinsty, Ukraine. Dec 1995 0.96.07.01.19”

(Image credits:left: Vivo (Ben) and right: Anosmia via: BoredPanda)

Left: “One of the five schools of Pripyat, each teaching about 1000 children. The schools have remained relatively intact considering the problems with looters eight years ago. I guess books don’t hold much value to the poor. “

Right:”At a 20th anniversary Chernobyl exhibit on Capitol Hill.”

(Image credits:zbruch via: BoredPanda)

“Children will never run here again.”

(Image credits:oinkylicious via: BoredPanda)

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) via: BoredPanda)

“Gym class”

Kindergarten

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

On the left: “Stairs on the creche/kindergarten near the center of Pripyat.”; on the right: “Broken doll on top of a corner cupboard in one of the rooms in the creche/kindergarten in the center of Pripyat.”

(Image credits:hanszinsli via: BoredPanda)

“Nursery in the creche/kindergarten”.

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

”Child’s big toy car in one of the rooms of the creche/kindergarten”. Notice the number plate of the car – 1984. It must be manufactured 2 years before the accident.

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

The note says “Rabbit”. I love those old-school soviet style drawings.

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

“Hay stuffed toy”.

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) via: BoredPanda)

Pripyat funfair

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) via: BoredPanda)

“Pripyat funfair was due to be opened on May 1st. The Chernobyl disaster happened April 26th.

No one ever managed to ride the ferries wheel. It remains one of the most irradiated parts of Pripyat since the disaster, making it still dangerous today, 22 years on.”

(Image credits:hanszinsli via: BoredPanda)

“Bumper car ride in the amusement park in central Pripyat, it was to be opened on the May 1st celebrations of 1986, five days after the accident”

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

“Ferris wheel control or ticket booth in the amusement park .. I’m sure the plush teddy bear was placed there later by someone looking for an emotional photo, but it’s interesting also to document the later attempts of using the accident to achieve certain media goals.”

Hospital

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) via: BoredPanda)

“Hospital corridor”.

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) via: BoredPanda)

“Found just outside the surgery in the hospital. This hospital received many of Reactor 4′s first victims for treatment immediately after the explosion. The hospital itself however was already exposed to huge amounts of radiation.

Every rescue worker who attended the initial explosion was killed by radiation poisoning.”

(Image credits:abandonia via: BoredPanda)

Swimming Pool

Olympic athletes must have been training here for the 70′s/80′s. The pool is really huge – this place must’ve been the best around.

(Image credits:oinkylicious via: BoredPanda)

Other buildings

(Image credits:rusocer via: BoredPanda)

“Pripyat, ghost city abandoned after chernobyl catastrophe, has grown to a forest. nature takes over and invades and collapses human creations the views remind some apocalipthic films like I am a Legend; Views from highst building in town, a former Hotel“.

(Image credits:Stuck in Customs via: BoredPanda)

“Radiated Apartment Building”.

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) via: BoredPanda)

The Government have left us – “From what I saw inside, I’d presume this was the local government building. There was a political event scheduled for a few days after the explosion and there are many pamphlets and banners still inside. “

(Image credits:Vivo (Ben) via: BoredPanda)

“These extremely well preserved posters are the last evidence of what the city’s inhabitants were like. I’m unsure of the details but I believe these men were politicians”.

(Image credits:Stuck in Customs via: BoredPanda)

We can see hammer and sickle on the roof.

(Image credits:Carpetblogger via: BoredPanda)

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

Left: “Dismantled sofa-bed in one of the apartments in the 16 story residential apartment”

Right: “Elevator call button in the 16 story residential apartment building facing the central square of Pripyat.”

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

“Electrical junction box in the 16 story residential apartment building”

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

Left: “Sofa under an open back window in one of the apartments in the 16 story residential apartment building”

Right: “Broken ceiling light fixture in one of the apartments in the 16 story residential apartment”

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

“Newspaper used as a backing to glue the wallpaper in one of the apartments in the 16 story residential apartment building facing the central square of Pripyat.”

Newspapers title: “Pravda” (Truth) – the official propaganda newspaper of the Soviet Union

Newspapers date: “Wednesday, 25th of May 1983”

Articles title on the left: “Africa fights and builds”

Other title at the bottom: “Land owners”

(Image credits:Pedro Moura Pinheiro via: BoredPanda)

Translations from the top to bottom:

“Store #1”

“Rainbow”

“Happy to provide service from 11 to 20 (?)

Lunch from 14 to 15”

“Saturday from 9 to 17

Lunch from 13 to 14”

(Image credits:rusocer via: BoredPanda)

“400m away from the reactor (max allowed)” “2.0 rt being off-scale of the reader-device. average radiation level of a non contaminated area: 0.010 rt/m2″

(Image credits:Stuck in Customs via: BoredPanda)

Two more reactors, no. 5 and 6, capable of producing 1 GW each, were under construction at the time of the disaster.

Living creatures

(Image credits:rusocer via: BoredPanda)

“These whikeers-fish survived and devolped countermeasures against the deadly radiation levels of the contaminated water in the rivers surrounding Chernobyl. we didnt there to have a splash with them but we fed them big chunks of bread that were guzzled in the blink of an eye !! “.

If you want to read real stories of Chernobyl survivors you should definitely check: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Train wreck?

2011-03-11T17:22:00.002-05:00

When you plan for that parenthood, how nervous do you get? Personally I am shaking like a leaf

Oh hiiiii !!!!!!!!!

2011-02-03T11:58:00.002-05:00

Texas buys power from Mexico to overcome wintry shortfalls

A legend passes away

2011-01-26T17:42:00.004-05:00

A nice obituary by rediff:

Classical singer Bhimsen Joshi passes away

Classical vocalist Pandit Bhimsen Joshi passed away on Monday morning in Pune. The veteran classical singer was rushed to a hospital with age-related ailments.

Joshi, an exponent of the Kirana gharana, was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's [ Images ] highest civilian honour, in 2008.

The last of the titans of Hindustani classical music, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was a rare genius who could transcend the mundane and transport his audience to the sublime with his gifted voice that captured both anguish and ecstasy.

What made him arguably the most popular Hindustani music vocalist of the current times was his impassioned renditions with a powerful and penetrating voice that showcased the aesthetic majesty of the Kirana gharana of which he was the celebrated exponent, as also the eloquent expression of light classical, devotional and the popular variety.

It was an awe-inspiring fusion of intelligence and passion that perhaps separated Joshi from other classical vocalists who dogmatically stuck to their gharana culture with a rigidity that possibly inhibited creativity.

Born on February 4, 1922, at Gadag in Dharwad district of Karnataka [ Images ], his journey to stardom in the world of Hindustani music was just as dramatic as it was arduous for one who decided to run away from home at a tender age of 11, in the quest of finding a guru to learn music.

Even as a child, Joshi's craving for music was evident to his family as he managed to lay his hands on a tanpura used by his Kirtankar grandfather, which had been kept away from his gaze at home. Music had such a magnetic pull over him that a bhajan-singing procession or azaan from a nearby mosque was said to draw him out of house.

On his way back home after school hours, Joshi used to stand near a shop selling gramophone records and listen to the music played by the owner for prospective customers.

There he chanced to hear a record of Abdul Karim Khan and resolved to sing like the Ustad. The quest for a guru started at that point, as Joshi told a biographer.

A slight provocation at home spurred Joshi to give effect to what had been brewing in his mind as he made his way to Gadag railway station, clad in a rumpled shirt and half pants, and embarked on a ticket-less train journey that took him to Bijapur where he sang bhajans, thus earning a pittance to feed himself.

Unable to find the master who could teach him, the intrepid youngster then wanted to go to Gwalior on advice by a music loving person but a mix-up of trains landed him in Pune, the seat of Maharashtra [ Images ] culture.

Joshi was in for a disappointment in his pursuit of a guru once again when eminent vocalist Krishnarao Phulambrikar, whom he approached for tutelage, insisted on a monthly fee that was beyond the means of the boy, whose parents by then had lodged a complaint with Gadag police after his disappearance from home.

Disappointed but not demoralised, Joshi left Pune for Mumbai [ Images ] and journeyed from place to place to finally reach Gwalior, his original destination and an acknowledged centre of Hindustani music.

With the help of sarod maestro Hafiz Ali Khan, who was under the patronage of the maharaja of Gwalior, the young Joshi joined the Madhav Sangeet Vidyalaya, a leading music institution in those days. His basics in khayal, the singing form that originated in Gwalior, were learnt during this period as he grasped the technical aspects of the gayaki.

Not content with the lessons at the Vidyalaya, Joshi again met Hafiz Ali Khan and persuaded the Ustad to teach him subtler points of difference between ragas Marwa and Puriya, the two classical melodies that remained his forte and a rage with his audiences.

With his passion for learning finer nuances of music undying and on advice from one of the teachers at the Vidyalaya, Joshi left Gwalior for Bengal where he became a student of Bhishmadev Chatterjee who taught him raga Gandhar.

After a brief stint with Chatterjee, who could not find enough time to teach his pupil due to a busy schedule, Joshi went to Jalandhar [ Images ], another leading centre of Hindustani music and the venue of an annual jalsa, a music festival that offered a platform for artistes from all over the country and listened to their music plentifully.

In Jalandhar, Joshi took up another pursuit side by side, which was rigorous physical exercises and acquired a strong physique which held him in good stead for vigorous riyaz throughout his life.

A chance meeting with Vinayakrao Patwardhan, a scholar musician, at one of the jalsas, prompted Joshi to go back to his home town as he advised the young artiste to approach Sawai Gandharva -- eminent exponent of the Kirana gharana -- at Kundgol and seek his discipleship.

Sawai Gandharva -- a leading disciple of Abdul Karim Khan -- subjected Joshi to a gruelling regime to test his urge and determination to learn music.

A strict disciplinarian, the guru (Sawai Gandharva) is said to have hurled a nut-cracker at the shishya (Joshi) when he slipped rather badly on a note-pattern.

Sawai Gandharva taught Todi, Multani, and Puriya ragas to Joshi as it was his considered view that mastery over these ragas was not only basic to the cultivation of a steady and tuneful voice, but also helped significantly in improving its volume, depth and range.

Joshi's shagiridi (tutelage) lasted five years during which he also accompanied his guru on concert tours.

He soon began giving mini-concerts in Dharwad, Sangli, Miraj and Kurundwad and among the music lovers who attended them was Mallikarjun Mansur, who was to later emerge as one of the great vocalists in the country.

His horizons widened and his wanderlust grew as he started going places visiting musical centres and gave a public concert in Mumbai which was a great success.

But it was a concert in Pune in January 1946 on the occasion of the 60th birthday of his guru that gave Joshi a real break, catapulting him to fame as he cast a hypnotic spell on his listeners.

He never looked back after this concert and was flooded with invitations from leading musical institutions in prominent places from all over the country.

A classicist by training and temperament, Joshi soon evolved an approach that sought to achieve a balance between what may be termed as "traditional values and mass-culture tastes" as he went on to have supposedly the largest commercially recorded repertoire in Hindustani vocal music.

What distinguished him from the ordinary was his powerful voice, amazing breath control, fine musical sensibility and unwavering grasp of the fundamentals that made him the supreme Hindustani vocalist, representing a subtle fusion of intelligence and passion that imparted life and excitement to his music.

In the forays he made outside the classical fold, Joshi lent is voice as a dhrupad singer for a Bengali film based on the life of Tansen and later sang as a playback singer for Marathi film Gulacha Ganapati [ Images ], produced and directed by celebrated Marathi humorist Pu La Deshpande, in addition to Hindi movies Basant Bahar and Bhairavi.

But it was his Sant Vani recitals, which bore the flair of Marathi Bhakti Sangeet that added immensely to his popularity in both Maharashtra and Karnataka which have had a long succession of saint-poets.

The appeal of Joshi's classical music transcended Indian borders as M Louis, a Dutch film producer and director who happened to listen to his raga Todi at an international film festival in Vancouver, produced a film on his music in India and exhibited it to the West.

Canadian business tycoon James Beveridge, who was deeply interested in Indian classical music, came all the way to Pune to shoot a 20-minute documentary on him which was titled Raga Miyan Malhar. Back home, it was renowned director Gulzar [ Images ] who made a 45-minute documentary on the life and career of the maestro in 1993 which won the national award for the best documentary film.

A man of many tastes, car driving was a passion for Joshi, who was also an expert swimmer, a keen enthusiast of yoga and a football player in his younger days. He had acknowledged his weakness for alcohol but left it in 1979 after it started affecting his career.

Be it sobriety or inebriation, the popularity and magnetism of this genius never ever faded.

Honours and awards came his way -- the Padma Shri (1972), Sangeet Natak Akademi award for Hindustani vocal music (1975), Padma Bhushan (1985) and the Madhya Pradesh [ Images ] government's Tansen Samman in 1992. Joshi's part in the Doordarshan feature Mile sur mera tumhara sequenced to inspire and promote national integration, earned him tremendous acclaim, striking a chord with the whole nation.

A biographer once said of him, "Here indeed is a man who has loved and lived his life with all its romance and intensity with a complete identification with his music… In real life, he was simple, transparent, forthright, and unobtrusive."

Panditji's public performances had dwindled in the last few years owing to the age factor. But everybody was in for a pleasant surprise when during the 2007 Sawai Gandharva festival -- the annual event which he had started in memory of his guru -- the maestro appeared on the stage on a wheelchair with an irresistible urge to sing before an avid audience that treasured the moment, which subsequently turned out to be his last public engagement.

The Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award bestowed on him in 2008, was nothing but a tribute paid by a grateful nation to a genius called Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, whose melodious exploration of Hindustani classical music enriched the lives of a multitude of connoisseurs as well as the common man who doted upon the artistic grandeur of his colossal voice.

The greatest sport bettor in the history of the world

2011-01-18T20:01:00.001-05:00

A 60 minute segment on Billy Walters the greatest sport bettor the world has ever seen

Spams are fun and euros are weirdos

2011-01-17T17:10:00.003-05:00

With Penis Enlarge Patch you can catch fish with your penis.

----------- In my spam folder

Art on display at Milan

Team 2011

2011-01-17T15:34:00.004-05:00

Squad:

MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel, Piyush Chawla, R Ashwin

Facepalm selection: Piyush Chawla the legspinner who last play one day cricket in his teens.

Key injuries: Sachin (right hamstring), Gambhir (left knee), Praveen Kumar (elbow), Sehwag (shoulder)

2011

2011-01-03T01:10:00.001-05:00

Going for Supernova for 2010

2010-12-25T20:51:00.000-05:00

Becoming a Supernova

The best rewards available, and perks that money just can't buy.

Supernova VIPs are treated to some of the finest conveniences that PokerStars can provide. From custom items, special milestone bonuses and free entry into weekly and monthly tournaments, those who earn Supernova status can be assured of being treated like stars.

Here's what you're entitled to when you become a Supernova VIP:

Benefit:	Details:
250% FPP Multiplier	You earn 3.5 FPPs for every 1 VPP earned
VIP Reward Bonus	$1,500 or $4,000 reward bonus available for purchase from the VIP Store
Milestone Cash Credits	As you reach various VIP Milestones you can purchase special cash credits.
Supernova VIP Store Access	Ability to purchase exclusive Supernova merchandise from the VIP Store using your FPPs
VIP Stellar Rewards	Cash rewards available in the VIP Store as you reach designated levels of yearly VPPs
Weekly VIP Tourneys	$30,000 tourney (Saturdays at 14:30 for 100 FPP buy-in)
Monthly VIP Tourney	$100,000 freeroll (Last Saturday of each month – free entry)
Quarterly VIP Tourney	$1 Million tourney – Feb 6th May 1st Aug 7th Nov 6th – free entry
FPP Buy-in to major tourneys	Use your FPPs to buy into the regular weekly tourneys as well as major events from the World Championship of Online Poker, PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, European Poker Tour events or the *World Series of Poker main event

To earn the rank of a Supernova VIP you must accumulate 100,000 VIP Player Points during the calendar year (January 1 through December 31). Once you have earned the required VPPs you're a Supernova VIP through at least the end of February of the following year.

In addition, we will extend your status on a month-by-month basis from January through the end of September, provided you continue to earn at least 7,500 VPPs every month, missing no more than one month of 7,500 VPP accrual. Players with less than 100,000 VPPs on October 1st will revert back to a monthly VIP status.

Example: If a player earns 100,000 VPP between January 1st and August 30th they will receive Supernova VIP status on August 30th and it will continue the rest of the calendar year. If in January and February of the following year, the player earns over 7,500 VPP each month, they continue to be a Supernova VIP. In March the player does not play at all and earns 0 VPP. In April the player earns 500 VPP. On the first of May the player's VIP status is reset at BronzeStar.

For increased rewards and benefits, aim high and play for Supernova Elite status - the highest and most rewarding level in the PokerStars VIP club.

When players hit one of the following VPP milestones they will be eligible to purchase a cash reward for 50,000 FPPs:

$1,000 at 100,000 VPP
$3,400 at 200,000 VPP
$3,600 at 300,000 VPP
$3,800 at 400,000 VPP
$4,000 at 500,000 VPP
$4,400 at 600,000 VPP
$4,600 at 700,000 VPP
$5,000 at 800,000 VPP

Meet Superman

2010-12-19T03:08:00.001-05:00

He blogs here.

Quoting Superman

a typical day is waking up at 6, getting to work at 7. Working until 5:30. Going to class from 6-9. Coming home and grinding from 9:30-1 or 2 a.m. Rinse and repeat.

chak de !

2010-12-04T23:28:00.000-05:00

OFF

2010-11-11T10:38:00.000-05:00

to india, be back in 3 weeks, everyone stay good

Spooky sundayaments everyone

2010-10-31T16:19:00.002-04:00

Costume ideas:

For my future children

Ideas for the wife that were rejected :(

Txt received frm a friend: gonna walk the streets with an 8yo dressed as a vampire cat, demanding sweets with menaces.

LOL stackaments

2010-10-24T03:07:00.001-04:00

1000 bb stacks at the 50nl hu table versus a total spastic monkey

Hmmm

2010-10-15T14:05:00.002-04:00

Marine Sergeant Ty Ziegel already had his life planned out, he would marry his girlfriend Renee Kline upon returning from his second tour of duty in Iraq.
But one fateful day a suicide bomber hit his truck, tearing apart his body and making him among the 20,000 soldiers that have been wounded in Iraq. He was blind in one eye, had a shattered skull, and most of his skin was burned off. Renee lived with Ty at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas for a year and a half, sharing Ty's every hope and fear. Their relationship became stronger than ever, and Ty and Renee moved back to their hometown in Illinois in July 2006, and got married in shortly.

So true love does exist??

Weirdest and funniest interview ever

2010-10-13T20:04:00.001-04:00

Probably the greatest primetime news interview ever from a Senate candidate:

Rough Rough Rough

2010-10-10T20:49:00.002-04:00

Messed up the sleep schedule and feeling totally fucked right now . Planning to put in some hands at the heads-up tables in a bit .

Cons of the airport full body scanner

2010-10-09T11:55:00.004-04:00

1. TSA is hell bent on giving me cancer
2. The Americans know I have a small penis.

Ek doctor ki Maut

2010-10-05T14:02:00.001-04:00

Test tube triumph & tragedy

- Nobel for UK scientist stirs memory of a Bengal doctor

OUR BUREAU AND AP

Medicine Nobel winner Robert Edwards (left) attends the 30th anniversary of the world’s first test-tube baby Louise Joy Brown (right), holding her son Cameron in July 2008. At the centre is Louise’s mother Lesley Brown. (AP)

Oct. 4: A British scientist has won the 2010 Medicine Nobel for research that led to the world’s first test-tube baby 32 years ago, while a Calcutta doctor who independently repeated the feat in India 10 weeks later was driven to suicide.

The Nobel Foundation today announced the award for Robert Edwards, 85, for developing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) techniques that have helped nearly 4 million infertile couples have babies.

The award almost coincides with the anniversary of the announcement of the birth of Durga — India’s first and the world’s second test-tube baby — by reproductive scientist Subhas Mukerji on October 3, 1978.

But Mukerji was called a fraud and faced bureaucratic vindictiveness in Bengal, and took his own life on July 19, 1981, according to scientific papers and historical notes.

Edwards, a professor emeritus at Cambridge University, started working on IVF in the 1950s. He developed the technique — in which egg cells are removed from a woman, fertilised outside her body and then implanted into the womb — together with British gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988.

Louise Brown, the first baby born through the procedure on July 25, 1978, in a Manchester clinic, said about the Nobel: “It’s fantastic news; me and mom are so glad. We hold Bob in great affection.”

Brown has herself given birth naturally, as have many other IVF babies — a fact the Nobel committee described as “probably the best evidence for the safety and success of IVF therapy”.

Mukerji made his own contributions to the technique. The Indian Council of Medical Research in 2005 credited him as the first in the world to use hormones to stimulate ovaries to make extra eggs, the first to harvest oocytes (eggs) through (a relatively easy) transvaginal route, and the first to freeze and thaw human embryos before transplanting them into a woman’s uterus.

Yet Mukerji and his two colleagues “were ridiculed by the medical fraternity and victimised by bureaucracy” for months after their work, a senior Indian reproductive scientist, T.C. Anand Kumar, wrote in 1997 in Current Science, a journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences.

Kumar, who played a key role in the birth of India’s first scientifically documented test-tube baby in Mumbai on August 6, 1986, had analysed Mukerji’s handwritten laboratory notes, scientific papers, and correspondence with the Bengal government.

His analysis revealed the Bengal government had appointed a panel headed by a radiophysicist — with a gynaecologist, a neurophysiologist and a physiologist as members — to examine the claims by Mukerji, who was posted at Bankura Sammilani Medical College.

None of the panel members “could have had background or insight into the modern science of reproductive technologies”, Kumar wrote, questioning the Bengal government’s rationale in appointing an expert from a “totally alien” field to head the panel.

This was just over a year after the formation of the Left Front government, which is widely held to have targeted and destroyed the standards of excellence in Bengal academia, often with the weapon of political appointments.

Since December 1978, the state authorities prevented Mukerji from presenting his work at scientific conferences and denied him permission to visit Kyoto University in Japan, which had invited him at its own expense. They transferred him in June 1981 to an institute of ophthalmology, an area where he had no expertise. Mukerji was only 50 when he hanged himself a month later.

Mukerji used to travel from Bankura to Calcutta every weekend to carry out his research with colleagues Sunit Mukherjee and gynaecologist Saroj Kanti Bhattacharya, who were at Jadavpur University and Calcutta Medical College.

“We were humiliated. There were people in the medical fraternity who wanted to crush him,” said Mukherjee, now 80. “It was Kumar’s in-depth analysis that revealed the facts.” Kumar himself died earlier this year.

Steptoe and Edwards too faced resistance from Britain’s medical establishment, which stopped their research funds, and were able to continue only thanks to a private donor.

Their work stirred an “ethical debate”, with the Vatican, other religious leaders and some scientists demanding the project be stopped. The Vatican opposed the separation of conception from the “conjugal act” and condemned the destruction of eggs that are taken from a woman’s body but not used.

Medical experts have pointed out that Mukerji’s pursuit of IVF occurred in an era when there was little awareness in India about ethical aspects of research. In his 1997 report on Mukerji’s contributions, Kumar had mentioned how Edwards would get his proposals for human experiments approved by institutional ethics committees.

Sunit Mukherjee said the embryo experiments in Calcutta did not have approval from any ethics committee. There was no culture of seeking approvals at the time, he said.

Yet the Calcutta team froze an eight-cell embryo, stored it for 53 days, thawed it and implanted it into a 31-year-old woman’s uterus. Edwards and Steptoe did not freeze the embryo, and their technique of extracting eggs from ovaries was more difficult than the one used by the Calcutta researchers, one expert said.

Edwards was not in good health when the Nobel committee tried to reach him today. “I spoke to his wife and she was delighted and she was sure he would be delighted too,” committee secretary Goran Hansson said.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the Nobel committee took so long to honour Edwards, and some experts criticised Britain for not having awarded him a knighthood. But Edwards told a newspaper in 2003 he was “not terribly bothered” about not getting a knighthood.

“I’m a very Left-wing socialist and I won’t shed a tear. But if you can organise a Nobel, please go ahead,” he joked.

One of those

2010-10-05T12:36:00.002-04:00

Perhaps one of the greatest rear-guard action of the millenia, once again from that man versus his fav opponents.

Big hand vs a completel moron

2010-10-01T23:40:00.002-04:00

$0.50/$1 No Limit Holdem • 2 Players • FullTiltPoker

SB	BUSTERab13	$187.80
BB	Hero	$201.80

Pre-Flop ($1.50, 2 players) Hero is BB

BUSTERab13 raises to $3, Hero calls $2

Flop ($6, 2 players)

Hero checks, BUSTERab13 bets $5, Hero calls $5

Turn ($16, 2 players)

Hero checks, BUSTERab13 bets $11, Hero raises to $27, BUSTERab13 calls $16

River ($70, 2 players)

Hero goes all-in $166.80, BUSTERab13 goes all-in $152.80

Final Pot: $389.60

BUSTERab13 shows

Hero shows four of a kind, Eights

Hero wins $389.10 (net +$187.30)
BUSTERab13 lost $187.80

The river shove is almost mandatory as i was sure he had a J, dood was God-moding me the whole match .

Chilling documentary

2010-09-30T19:43:00.002-04:00

About Sweedish twin sisters who went mad in the most bizzare fashion.

Super tilt

2010-09-28T19:29:00.003-04:00

Swamped at work, vacation postponed due to deadline, running horrid at the poker tables, car got sidewinded by a massive 100000 ton motherfucking truck ...

Fuck

No jinx

2010-09-21T00:15:00.004-04:00

Just went through my database and discovered this for august on fulltilt

No losing days , only if this could last :(

Sigh

2010-09-12T01:59:00.001-04:00

Jawan hunts for daughter’s abductors

RAMASHANKAR

Patna, Sept. 11: Deputed on the international border, havildar Rajiv Ranjan Pandey has stood guard, ready to fight any enemy who could harm his countrymen. Now, sitting at home for the past two months, he is clueless how to rescue his eight-year-old daughter from an enemy who is in the hiding.

A havildar in the 2nd Bihar Regiment, Pandey alias Bhola Pandey was posted at Ranikhep on India-China border when he got the news about his daughter Shikha being abducted from the Company Sah locality of Sasaram town in Rohtas district. He left for home immediately, hoping his daughter would be rescued by the time he would reach his village.

“It’s been two months since Shikha’s abduction. I have been running from pillar to post to secure her release but the police have failed to trace the kidnappers’ whereabouts,” said Pandey.

Shikha, a Class III student of Vidya Sagar School at Sasaram, went missing from the Company Sah area on July 20. Initially a missing complaint was lodged at Modal police station.

“Soon the missing complaint was converted to a kidnapping case after the kidnappers demanded a ransom of Rs 6 lakh for the safe release of Sikha,” said Pandey.

The harried father received some information about his daughter from witnesses who claimed they saw Shikha being kidnapped by some Maruti van-borne criminals from near her house. Station house officer of Modal police station Mohammad Akram said that the girl was picked up when she was practising how to ride a bicycle in a field adjacent to Rauja Road.

With help of some local people, Pandey caught hold of one of the conspirators, Anil Pathak alias Chhotu, and handed over him to the police.

In police custody, Pathak confessed to his crime and disclosed the name of another accused, Sipahi Sharma, who was taken into custody from his village Kharari Tola under Nokha police station.

“By the time police reached Sharma’s house, the kidnappers had shifted Shikha somewhere else. Both Pathak and Sharma were later sent to jail,” said Pandey.

The army jawan is peeved at the pace of investigation. “When the two accused have admitted their involvement in the crime, why the police have not taken them on remand for further interrogation?” he asked.

Pandey is worried about the health of his wife Babita Devi. “One can well imagine the condition of a woman whose only daughter has been kidnapped and the police have failed to trace her even after 64 days,” he said.

Pathak’s role in the kidnapping case was suspected after he sought information about the cellphone number of Shikha’s grandmother soon after the incident on July 20. “Within six hours, the alleged abductors demanded a ransom of Rs 6 lakh on the mobile phone of Shikha’s grandmother,” said a police officer investigating the case.

“I had not expected such an indifferent attitude from police officers towards the case. I met many senior police officers, including the DIG and the SP, and sought their intervention. Still no step has been taken by them to recover my daughter,” Pandey said.

Rohtas Superintendent of Police Vikas Vaibhav, when contacted, said efforts are on to recover the child.

LONG WAIT

Eight-year-old Shikha was abducted on July 20 from a field in Company Sah area.

Abductors demanded Rs 6 lakh as ransom from havildar Rajiv Ranjan Pandey’s family.

Two accused -- Anil Pathak alias Chhotu and Sipahi Sharma – have been arrested.

Kidnappers still at large. Police have no information on the child’s safety.

Rackpawnage

2010-09-11T17:32:00.000-04:00

RIP

2010-09-11T12:50:00.003-04:00

There are some wounds that time dont heal.

Showkatara Sharif holds a picture of Shakila Yasmin and Nurul Miah, both victims of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre

Shippage

2010-09-10T00:38:00.001-04:00

My horse ships the rush rebuy for 3kish on fulltilt. Woooooooot

One more step towards Islamophobia?

2010-09-07T17:26:00.001-04:00

US church to go ahead with Sept. 11 Quran burning

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A Christian minister vowed Tuesday to go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Quran to protest the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks despite warnings from the White House and the top U.S. general in Afghanistan that he would endanger American troops overseas.

Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center, which has about 50 members, said he understands the government's concerns but plans to go forward with the burning Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the attacks.

He left the door open to change his mind, saying he is still praying about his decision, which was condemned Tuesday by an interfaith coalition that met in Washington to respond to a spike in anti-Muslim bigotry.

Gen. David Petraeus warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley echoed that, calling the plan to burn copies of the Quran "un-American" and saying it does not represent the views of most people in the U.S.

"While it may well be within someone's rights to take this action, we hope cooler heads will prevail," Crowley said.

Jones told the AP in a phone interview that he is also concerned but wonders how many times the U.S. can back down.

"We think it's time to turn the tables, and instead of possibly blaming us for what could happen, we put the blame where it belongs — on the people who would do it," he said. "And maybe instead of addressing us, we should address radical Islam and send a very clear warning that they are not to retaliate in any form."

Jones, who runs the small, evangelical Christian church with an anti-Islam philosophy, says he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a .40-caliber pistol strapped to his hip.

The threats started not long after the 58-year-old minister proclaimed in July that he would stage "International Burn a Quran Day." Supporters have been mailing copies of the Islamic holy text to his Dove World Outreach Center to be incinerated in a bonfire that evening.

The fire department has denied Jones a required burn permit for Saturday, but he says he is going ahead with his event. He said lawyers have told him his right to burn the Quran is protected by the First Amendment whether he's got permission from the city or not.

Muslims consider the Quran to be the word of God and insist it be treated with the utmost respect, along with any printed material containing its verses or the name of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad. Any intentional damage or show of disrespect to the Quran is deeply offensive.

The interfaith group of evangelical, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim leaders meeting in Washington condemned Jones' plan to burn the Quran as a violation of American values and the Bible. Among the participants was Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired Catholic archbishop of Washington, D.C.; Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; and top officials from the Islamic Society of North America, the group that organized the gathering.

"This is not the America that we all have grown to love and care about," said Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "We have to stand up for our Muslim brothers and sisters and say, "This is not OK.'"

In this progressive north Florida town of 125,000 anchored by the sprawling University of Florida campus, the lanky preacher with the bushy white mustache is mostly seen as a fringe character who doesn't deserve the attention he's getting.

Still, at least two dozen Christian churches, Jewish temples and Muslim organizations in Gainesville have mobilized to plan inclusive events — some will read from the Quran at their own weekend services — to counter what Jones is doing. A student group is organizing a protest across the street from the church Saturday.

The Vatican newspaper on Tuesday published an article in which Catholic bishops, including Archbishop Lawrence John Saldanha of Lahore, Pakistan, criticized Jones' plan.

"No one burns the Quran," read the headline in Tuesday's L'Osservatore Romano.

Jones gained some local notoriety last year when he posted signs in front of his small church proclaiming "Islam is of the Devil." The church is independent of any denomination but follows the Pentecostal tradition, which teaches that the Holy Spirit can manifest itself in the modern day. Pentecostals often view themselves as engaged in spiritual warfare against satanic forces.

Jones' Quran-burning scheme, after it caught fire on the Internet, brought rebukes from Muslim nations and an avalanche of media interview requests just as an emotional debate was taking shape over the proposed Islamic center near the Ground Zero site in New York.

The Quran, according to Jones, is "evil" because it espouses something other than the Christian biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims.

"It's hard for people to believe, but we actually feel this is a message that we have been called to bring forth," he said last week. "And because of that, we do not feel like we can back down."

FBI agents have visited to talk about their concerns for Jones' safety, as multiple Facebook pages with thousands of members have popped up hailing him as either a hero or a dangerous pariah.

His plan has drawn formal condemnation from the world's pre-eminent Sunni Muslim institution of learning, Al-Azhar University in Egypt, whose Supreme Council accused the church of stirring up hate and discrimination and called on other American churches speak out against it. Last month, Indonesian Muslims demonstrated outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, threatening violence if Jones goes through with it.

___

Associated Press Writer Kimberly Dozier in Kabul, Afghanistan, and AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll in New York contributed to this report.

(This version corrects capitalization in cardinal's last name to McCarrick.)

Randomania

2010-09-05T13:03:00.000-04:00

LOL

2010-09-05T11:22:00.000-04:00

These people do have to deal with being french their whole lives, so at least there's that.
Relevance here

That time of the year

2010-09-05T00:17:00.002-04:00

Time to burn a hole in the bank-roll. I'll be playing most of the weekend tournaments with buyins under $500, starting with the $215 buyin 1.2million guarantee tomorrow. Time to run good

2010 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker schedule

Sunday, September 5th
13:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em [6-Max]
15:00 ET: $10,300 NL Hold'em [High Roller]
17:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em [2-Day]

Monday, September 6th
14:00 ET: $320 PL Omaha
17:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em Shootout [6-Max]
20:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em [Turbo, Rebuys]

Tuesday, September 7th
14:00 ET: $215 PL Draw
17:00 ET: $215 TBD
20:00 ET: $1,050 NL Hold'em [15-Min Levels]

Wednesday, September 8th
12:00 ET: $265 PL Omaha (Knockout)
14:00 ET: $320 NL Hold'em [Ante Up]
17:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em [Heads-Up, 2-Day]

Thursday, September 9th
12:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em
14:00 ET: $265 NL Hold'em [6-Max, Knockout]
17:00 ET: $215 Razz

Friday, September 10th
14:00 ET: $215 PL Omaha [6-Max]
17:00 ET: $215 NL Single Draw
20:00 ET: $109 8-Game [10-Min Levels]

Saturday, September 11th
13:00 ET: $109 NL Hold'em [10-Min Levels]
17:00 ET: $215 FL Hold'em

Sunday, September 12th
13:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em
17:00 ET: $530 NL Hold'em [2-Day]

Monday, September 13th
14:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em [4-Max]
17:00 ET: $320 Stud
20:00 ET: $215 PL Omaha [Turbo, 1 Rebuy, 1 Add-On]

Tuesday, September 14th
14:00 ET: $320 Mixed Hold'em [6-Max]
17:00 ET: $320 FL Badugi
20:00 ET: $1050 NL Hold'em [15-Min Levels]

Wednesday, September 15th
12:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em [1 Rebuy, 1 Add-On]
14:00 ET: $530 NL Hold'em Triple Shootout [10-Max]
17:00 ET: $320 8-Game

Thursday, September 16th
12:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em [6-Max]
14:00 ET: $320 PL Omaha [6-Max, 1 Rebuy, 1 Add-On]
17:00 ET: $320 FL Triple Draw 2-7

Friday, September 17th
14:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em (Rebuys)
17:00 ET: $530 FL Omaha Hi/Lo
20:00 ET: $320 NL Hold'em [10-Min Levels]

Saturday, September 18th
13:00 ET: $530 NL Hold'em [Heads-Up, 2-Day]
15:00 ET: $25,500 NL Hold'em [High Roller Heads-Up, 2-Day]
17:00 ET: $320 HORSE

Sunday, September 19th
13:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em
17:00 ET: $1,050 NL Hold'em [2-Day]

Monday, September 20th
14:00 ET: $320 PL Omaha [6-Max, Rebuys]
17:00 ET: $320 NL Hold'em [2X Chance]
20:00 ET: $265 NL Hold'em [Turbo, Knockout]

Tuesday, September 21st
14:00 ET: $320 Mixed [PLHE / PLO]
17:00 ET: $530 Stud Hi/Lo
20:00 ET: $1,050 NL Hold'em [15-Min Levels]

Wednesday, September 22nd
12:00 ET: $215 PL Omaha [6-Max]
14:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em [Big Antes]
17:00 ET: $320 PL Omaha Hi/Lo

Thursday, September 23rd
12:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em (Turbo)
14:00 ET: $530 NL Hold'em (Rebuys)
17:00 ET: $2,100 PL Omaha [6-Max]

Friday, September 24th
14:00 ET: $530 NL Hold'em [1 Rebuy, 1 Add-On]
17:00 ET: $1,050 FL Hold'em [6-Max]
20:00 ET: $215 NL Omaha H/L [10-Min Levels]

Saturday, September 25th
13:00 ET: $530 PL Omaha [Heads-Up Matches]
17:00 ET: $2,100 HORSE

Sunday, September 26th
13:00 ET: $215 NL Hold'em
15:00 ET: $10,300 8-Game [High-Roller]
17:00 ET: $5,200 NL Hold'em Main Event [2-Day]

Four letters of philosophy

2010-09-04T00:25:00.004-04:00

Love , pain, ............. fuck

Agent K: Hey look at it this way, Its better to love and lose than never to love.
Agent J : Try it

Weekend goal

2010-08-28T13:45:00.003-04:00

Aiming for 1k over the weekend . Lets goo dealerrrrrrr, Catch is i have to spend both mornings at the office to try and fix a nasty nasty nasty bug :(

Pride of the gay

2010-08-25T18:34:00.004-04:00

n celebration of NYC Pride Week ( we present one of the most homoerotic Bollywood films we have watched (and enjoyed) in quite some time.

Dharamveer (1977), starring Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Neetu Singh, Zeenat Aman and Pran details the “friendship between Dharam (Dharmendra) and Veer (Jeetendra). What’s not to love about gladiator and sparkly silver outfits?

Happy Pride Week and if you plan to be at the Parade ( we’ll see you there!! (We’ll be the ones wearing the extra tight benyans and lungis!)

verbatim from www.turbanhead.com/weblog/2005/06/19/were-here-were-dharamqueer-get-over-it and another great post about this surreal love story of indian cinema ...

Honors board for this one

2010-08-24T20:14:00.001-04:00

Song of the year so far

In love

2010-08-24T10:33:00.003-04:00

With the radio. Over the past year I am beginning to find this medium much more appealing than TV, being hooked to right wing talk shows obviously helps.

Tooth update: I still have it, dont know for how long :((

Solid beat

2010-08-23T11:31:00.002-04:00

Went to a watch Peepli live last night, while standing in the ticket counter queue, the person in front of me appeared to be having an animated conversation with his trio of 5 year olds. Suddenly he started waving his hands in an uncontrollable fashion and within a few minutes he managed to inadvertently strike his massive elbow smack into my face.

Result : Nose is a mess
LEft front tooth has been dislodged and would probably fall off any minute.

Sigh !!!!!!!!

Solid brag

2010-08-21T16:37:00.002-04:00

After going on the diet, dropped 20 pounds in a month-half, clothes from 2003 fit me like a teeee.
Ship it son !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

funniest (?) divorce post

2010-08-16T15:05:00.005-04:00

Well, I follow this great blog by a very strong and very successful indian poker pro. The guy is going through what is apparently a messy and prolonged divorce and recently he made a uber awesome funny(?) post about this (wife's name is priti FWIW) :

Unscramble the following - "IRIPT" ... to define the following:

A type of snake, extremely slimy in texture and highly poisonous. Often pillages the nests of other nobler species, robbing them not only of enough food to satisfy itself, but much more out of what scientists believe to be unusually heightened levels of greed and malice. Because of its serendipity and pilfering skills, the "IRIPT" usually lives a life of luxury despite not hunting for itself. Because of above average physical characteristics and an intrinsic ability to hide aforementioned characteristics of greed and malice, the "IRIPT" is able to mate successfully outside of its species, often mating with exceptional hunter-gatherers. However, the "IRIPT" is believed to be unilaterally unhappy regardless of circumstance. Scientists hope that for the benefit of other species as well as to the environment as a whole, the "IRIPT" is on its way towards extinction.

I know its kind of crummy to LOL @ this, but silly me I did. Sorry Niman. I can think of a few i knew who would fit this description to a tee, hell certain letters of the IPRIT anagram may overlap as well.

30s speak

2010-08-15T17:40:00.004-04:00

Peter Pan never grew up, such a shame the rest of us did.

New discovery

2010-08-13T17:40:00.003-04:00

At Houston a brazilian steakhouse , half the price of the regular ones, while double the standard (service,meat quality) of the regs.

I am ecstatic. Going tonight, earlyish, primed to stuff myself to the brim.

Really?

2010-08-03T15:51:00.002-04:00

via some euro french tart on some random forum, followed by some 1st grade freaky repartee from a redneck "in america we like our butts big because our anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns huns but you can do side bends or sit-ups, but please don't lose that butt is our plea."

Latest breakup line

2010-08-03T15:40:00.000-04:00

Was with a special girl for 4 months before getting the pink slip from her pink slit. !!!

Shakira Bhauji

2010-07-31T15:31:00.000-04:00

Thats a score

2010-07-29T11:00:00.002-04:00

« Previous Next »

1 2 3 4

Take a stand against monotonous travel with Suitcase Stickers. Designed to stick to anything, they will draw attention to your bag making it easily identifiable and sure to make you some new friends.

Caution: Some of these stickers may cause offense to airport and immigration staff. But you would have figured that out whilst enjoying those cavity searches.

Sizes 16” x 12”

Price $15 each
(not including postage and packing)

Buy here

PP and P

2010-07-29T10:39:00.002-04:00

Thats Pleasure, Passion and Purpose.

Most of us, most of the time, seek happiness by pursuing things that give us pleasure. This kind of happiness is short-lived as such happiness cannot be sustained beyond the existence of the stimulus. The next level of happiness comes from pursuing your passion; this tends to last longer. The longest lasting happiness, studies show, comes from a higher purpose – this is about being part of something that is bigger than just your self.

Disclaimer: Part of the soul searching thursday blues bandwagon

Dream dream dream, till you are there

2010-07-28T00:01:00.002-04:00

Meet Paawaan Kothari, the chaiwalli

Paawan Kothari was a marketing strategist for IBM. Now she drives down the streets of San Francisco on a bicycle converted into a chai cart and sells cups of tea. It sounds like a case study of a recession victim, a sort of pulling-yourself-up-by-thebootstraps (or tea leaves) story. But in reality, Kothari quit IBM because she was burned out. “I wanted to be creative. I wanted to engage with people,” she says. But didn’t the idea of strapping a thermos to a bicycle trailer and cycling around San Francisco’s hilly streets seem rather extreme? It’s not as if she’d always been a chai fanatic. “I am more of a coffee drinker,” Kothari admits. “For tea, I used tea bags. Chai was more of a Sunday thing.”

Street food carts have become quite the culinary trend in the San Francisco Bay Area. There was the crème brulee man, Mexican taco trucks and CurryUpNow for kaathi rolls and pav bhaaji. Fans followed these mobile food vans on Twitter and showed up at street corners where they parked. Kothari noticed that what you couldn’t get was good authentic chai. “You have hot dog stands, taco stands, so why not a chai cart?” she says. She thought it would be a good pastime while she tried to figure out what she wanted to do with her life and career.

Within 10 days she had a bicycle trailer made, got carafes and a thermos, made two flavours of chai — ginger and mint — and showed up at the park. That was in August 2009. “I thought I might do it for a couple of weeks,” she says. She enjoyed it so much she started doing it every weekend. “Now even if I don’t feel like doing it, there is pressure that people are looking for you.”

Her repertoire has expanded. Cardamom , lemongrass, black pepper, Mexican chocolate, malt, even green chilli (“ it has the flavour of green chilli but not the heat.”) Now she’s experimenting with a salty, buttery chai from Bhutan. “It doesn’t sound appealing, but I’ll try it,” she says. That’s the beauty of The Chai Cart (www.thechaicart.com). If it doesn’t work you can toss the batch and just start over again. “Chai is quite forgiving and anything works as long as you can’t taste the bitterness. I make sure I use good milk and good spices,” says Kothari.

She’s also learned quite a bit about teas. She knew she wanted bold flavours — Assam tea or Brooke Bond. She wanted to get organic teas but they were too expensive. But Kothari is a purist about the spices — authentic Indian spices for her masala chai. She also has her own chai masala mix that she wants to patent and sell online. And she also nurtures dreams of a chai franchise — a sort of chai cart in every city. Otherwise, she says, her chai business is only about making pocket money. That’s where the marketing strategy of the MBA kicks in. “One needs to franchise; it should be a unique concept, otherwise the barrier to entry is too high,” she says. It sounds like a business plan with market research, but back in India, her family was a little befuddled. They were indulgent with the chai idea as long as it was a weekend hobby. There were jokes about being a chaiwalli but she says, “there is something romantic about a chai cart in San Francisco. It is picture-postcard romantic.” The hills reaching out to touch the bay, the blue waters speckled with sailboats... On a summer afternoon, the fog will suddenly roll in. But reality is more sobering. “I was caught in a hailstorm once,” remembers Kothari. “My fingers were freezing. I also had a flat tyre. I was so miserable that I wrote a blog about it.”

If the tea was not confusing enough for her family, now she’s branched out into another venture called Green Coriander. It’s healthy, organic Indian food for delivery, a break from the usual cream and oil that have become the staple of desi food in the West. “My folks said you haven’t ever cooked for more than 10 people, what are you doing,” she says. But even with Green Coriander, Kothari does not want a sit-down restaurant with infrastructure costs. She wants it quick, easy and healthy. In the process of running her own chai cart, Kothari has learned the nuts and bolts of a start up in a way she could never have imagined at IBM. She’s learned about street permits and health inspector codes. She’s gone to San Francisco city hall with other street vendors to demand amendments to rules and regulations. But best of all, 15 years after she moved to the US from Hyderabad, Kothari has finally found a community.

“As an immigrant, I always felt this was a place I lived in,” she says. “Now I belong. Now I am part of a street cart movement. We share a Google group. We re-tweet about each other,” she says. Her clientele includes non-Indians curious about chai. It includes Indians who want the nostalgia of hot steaming roadside chai. Some even bring their parents to check it out. Her own parents are proving harder to convert. On a trip back to India, Kothari offered to make chai for her mother. “She said no, let me make it my way. You make yours for the Americans,” she chuckles.

Factling of the day

2010-07-26T11:03:00.001-04:00

If you have automatic toilets and the power goes out, they aren’t automatic any more.

Back on the grind

2010-07-22T11:39:00.004-04:00

After dabbling in tournament poker for the better part of this month, I am back on the cash game grind. Goal is to make some fat-ass $$ by july end.

Clarification: By fat ass $$s I mean really solid bitchy fat ass $$, not your regular skinny green benjamins, who likes them anyway

The blood book

2010-07-20T15:56:00.001-04:00

Book with Tendulkar's blood in it for $ 75,000

London: The publishers of Sachin Tendulkar's autobiography 'Tendulkar Opus' has decided to come out with a special edition of the book which will have the iconic batsman's blood on the signature page.

The "blood edition" of Tendulkar's autobiography, which will have pictures of his family not published earlier and thoughts about his career, will be released in February next year to coincide with the Cricket World Cup in the sub-continent.

The book, which will have 852 pages edged in gold leaf, will be sold at a whopping USD 75,000. Only 10 copies of the book, which will weigh 37kg and measure half a metre square, will come out. All the 10 copies have, however, been pre-ordered.

"The signature page will be mixed with Sachin's blood -- mixed into the paper pulp so it's a red resin. It is what it is -- you will have Sachin's blood on the page," publisher Kraken Media's chief executive Karl Fowler was quoted as saying in The Guardian.

"It's not everyone's cup of tea, it's not to everyone's taste and some may think it's a bit weird. But the key thing here is that Sachin Tendulkar to millions of people is a religious icon. And we thought how, in a publishing form, can you get as close to your god as possible," said Fowler.

"We're publishing next February, in time for the cricket World Cup, which is being held in India. It's perfect timing. He's never done anautobiography before and has a great story to tell."

Apart from his blood, Tendulkar has also been asked for a sample of his saliva which would be used to create his DNA profile and would be printed on a two-metre gatefold in the book.

"What you'll be looking at is his genetic makeup," Fowler said. All proceeds from the sale of the 10 copies will go to Tendulkar's charitable foundation to help build a school in Mumbai. Kraken will also publish around 1,000 copies of a cheaper edition of the autobiography at USD 2,000-3,000.

Signed by Tendulkar, this edition will also be a half-metre square in size and will contain around 75 per cent previously unpublished material about the cricketing star, as well as his DNA profile but not his blood. Kraken Media is also releasing a USD 200-300 smaller editionof the book.

Hmmm

2010-07-19T18:24:00.001-04:00

What are the five most prominent reasons that lead to sleep disorders?

Lack of rest during the day.
Poor nutrition -- sugary snacks, caffeine, stimulants and alcohol, dehydration
Too much exposure to technology -- mobile phones, computers, (playstation, xbox) etc
Worry and inability to let go of control.
Lack of inner safety -- this can be related to lack of spiritual practice

Snap snap

2010-07-16T13:26:00.011-04:00

Vegas shots, outdoors and at Lake Mead @105F

So Close

2010-07-12T17:39:00.006-04:00

Came close to 30k score in tournament poker last night, only to have it squashed in the most ridiculous manner.

What could have been a post titled

Needs to be moderated now to

And just to put things in perspective:

'With Rs 200 a month, I can't even afford to dream'

Like any 13-year-old, Subroto Mondol, aka Pocha, loves to fly kites and is an avid fan of Hindi film songs. But he does not get much time to indulge in his favourite pastimes.

For, he has to spend 10-12 hours at a roadside tea stall near Garia in south Kolkata [ Images ], catering to hundreds of customers every day.

And in lieu of that, he gets only Rs 200 a month, a pair of trousers and a shirt, and four meals daily.

They are naturally not enough for the hard work that he puts in every day. However, at this early age, he has learnt to take things in his stride.

"My parents are too poor. They also work as labourers at our village home. They ran into huge debts after marrying my sisters off. Hence I had to venture out for a job that would take care of my daily needs. Some friends introduced me to this tea stall owner a few years back," he says.

His father works at a local hotel and his mother makes a living out of her job as a housemaid in the vicinity. Pocha's day starts at 7 a.m. and ends at 11 p.m. In between, he gets a three-hour break in the afternoon.

Pocha studied till Class III but confesses that he never liked studying too much. "It bored me. I wanted to sing and listen to music instead."

His job being an exhaustive one, he hardly finds any leisure but whenever he gets a chance he switches on to the FM radio and catches up on any new Hindi film number.

"Wish I had an iPod. For someone as poor as me, it is ludicrous even to dream of having one. It is so very expensive," he smiles the tell-tale smile, nodding his head as if making fun of his own illogical thoughts.

In between our interaction, he never forgets his customers, getting them just what they ask for -- tea without milk, well-buttered bread, crispy biscuits, et al.

He also washes the cups and plates that the customers leave behind at the tap right next to the tea-stall.

Just then someone, a local businessman, a familiar face it seems, approaches the stall riding a motorcycle. He calls Pocha by his name and asks for black tea. The 13-year-old pauses for a while and then rushes to fetch a cup.

As the older guy sips his drink, Pocha mumbles cautiously, "Since my childhood, I always dreamt of owning a bike. But with the kind of money that I earn, even a dream seems to be a luxury."

Conclusion : I love in girl in bikinis

The King is dead

2010-07-11T12:58:00.002-04:00

Atleast at Cleveland

Vegas' best

2010-07-09T17:47:00.002-04:00

Shows:

1. Viva
2.Lion King
3. Mystere

Disclaimer: Only 3 we watched

Lol Donkaments

2010-07-06T05:09:00.002-04:00

Off to LVegas

2010-07-01T19:06:00.002-04:00

.......... Armed with a list of restaurants

Go Chile

2010-06-24T10:35:00.002-04:00

Why we are rooting for Chile today as they take on Spain in a very very open Group H

When the World Cup means everything: Chile fly the flag for 521 killed by earthquake

When your country has been hit by an earthquake and then a tsunami, you’d think football – even the World Cup – tends to become a minor detail. You’d be wrong.

At 3.34am on February 27 this year, Chile fell apart. The Richter scale registered 8.8 and 93 percent of the country's population were left in the dark as power failed. First the ground shook for 90 seconds, then the waves came. The huge off-shore quake moved the earth’s axis 8cm and shortened the day by over 1.28 microseconds.

The city of Concepción moved 10 feet west. The capital Santiago was shifted 10 inches, and Argentine capital Buenos Aires, a thousand miles away, moved one and a half inches. Chile gained an extra square mile of territory after their strongest quake since 1960.

It left 521 dead, 200,000 homeless and 500,000 houses damaged. But it also left a flag. The flag in this picture. Ripped and muddied, this is the standard around which Chile will gather today as they prepare to face Spain to decide Group H at Loftus Versfeld tomorrow.

A chap called Bruno Sandoval rescued the flag (white for the Andean snow, blue for the sky, red for the blood of the independence fighters) from the ruins of Pelluhue, about 200 miles south west of the capital Santiago. At the time, Chile’s president Sebastian Pinera said his actions would “lift the spirit of a nation.”

And that La Roja flag is still doing its job, fluttering over the team’s plush base at the Ingwenyama resort near Nelspruit. Chile’s captain Claudio Bravo, their unbeaten goalkeeper in 1-0 wins over Honduras and Switzerland so far, says: “We brought the flag with us to remind the team of what happened. The whole nation is watching. We remember our disaster.”

The delightfully named defender Waldo Ponce said: “It’s extra motivation. I always go to the flag after we finish training. It shows the suffering of our people – but it also reminds us we can bring a little joy after what happened."

Back home, between gathering around televisions to watch their side in distant Africa, the rebuilding goes on. Pedro Poblete lives in Talca, right at the epicentre of the earthquake. He lost his off-licence/bottle store but argues: “The World Cup helps me forget I’m homeless. This flag shows we have suffered and bled. And continue to blee. The flag and the football soothes our pain.”

Fortunately for Chile, that soothing process is likely to go on for a while yet. As long as Switzerland don’t beat Honduras in Bloemfontein, they can even afford to lose against the world’s second-best side and they will still march on to the last 16.

In a tournament dominated by the Latin American teams, Spain’s opening loss to Switzerland means they are the side that has to do all the running at Loftus. Mind you, Chile have never beaten Spain. The last time they met, in 2008, the recently-crowned European champions crushed their former colony 3-0.

Spearheaded by Durban-born Mark Gonzalez, whose father Raul signed for Umlazi Bush Bucks in 1984 (I should know, I broke the story in the Durban Daily News!) Chile have got what it takes to be the surprise package at South Africa 2010, though they are ranked a mere 18 in the world.

Gonzalez scored the only goal against Switzerland and President Pinera, watching with earthquake victims in Concepción, issued his verdict: “Humberto Suazo is a great player, but today was not his day. I think that the best was Jorge Valdivia. He opened the field, he made beautiful passes and he gave the pass for Esteban Paredes to make the cross for Mark Gonzalez to score the goal."

That kind of political and emotional judgement, with the muddy flag flying in the background, might just spurs Suazo and Co on to greater things against Spain. The European champions had better be wary. They could be the last side knocked out in the group stages. This one could make England v Germany look pedestrian.

From this excellent World cup 2010 blog by Neal Colline

Weekend randomania

2010-06-21T12:36:00.005-04:00

Spent most of the weekend indoors due to the absurd heat of the houston summer (105 F)
Watched ALL weekend world cup matches live, halfway through the Brazilian match got an emergency office call --GAAHH
Started staking a Houston player in poker, 50-50 profit sharing on a monthly basis.
Contemplated the bliss of a life without the 8-6 grind.
Booked a Las Vegas trip on impulse for the jul 4th weekend, got an absurdly great deal for the Excalibur, spent an unhealthy amount of time scouting Las Vegas restaurant reports.
Hit and ran poker, by playing very little.

Will be paid in green Benjamins

2010-06-14T10:25:00.005-04:00

123 GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL

2010-06-12T11:54:00.004-04:00

And we are away (watched my first match today after waking up at 6:30 am, will be operating the day on 3 hr sleep it seems<--- standard ) at South Africa.

Playing crazies

2010-06-10T05:55:00.010-04:00

Played a bat shit crazy guy and he donated 700 to me as an early christmas present over 2 tables of .25/.50 headsup (pic of one of the table above) in about 2.5 hrs !!!

Pipedreams?

2010-06-09T11:13:00.004-04:00

Wouldnt it be great if you could wake up tomorrow and take yourself out of the corporate rat race. No more endless meetings, mentoring, supervising, deadlines, 7 AM wakeup calls.

Inspiration here:

I’m 40 years old and I’ve been playing online poker professionally for almost 17 months. Whenever I meet someone new, they inevitably ask what I do for a living. When I tell them, they are always surprised and genuinely seem interested in what I do. Most people raising a family in the suburbs have probably never met someone who plays poker for a living. The image that “pro poker player” conjures up is that of a grizzled degenerate gambler in a smoke-filled room, about three days past needing a shower badly. I enjoy thinking about and writing about poker, and a blog seemed to be a good way not only to express myself, but to shed some light on what it’s like raising a family and playing poker.

My goal is to make $500K this year playing online poker. That's a lot of money, especially for someone who was called a "muppet luckbox" on the poker forums just last year. My best month last year was only $32K, but I’m constantly trying to improve my game and feel like I can continue to improve. I’ll discuss my goals in a later post. My favorite muppet by the way is the Swedish chef. I know he’s not really politically correct, but maybe it has something to do with my love of food.

My previous job was trading at an investment bank – as a proprietary trader focusing on interest rate curvature. Or as my wife likes to say “a bleah bleah bleah trader.” I took a huge hit from the market turmoil in 2007. I basically had one of those Wile E Coyote moments where I was riding high, and before I knew it, I was falling off a cliff... And then a huge boulder falls on me.

I took some time off after work to be with my wife while she was on bed rest with our second son. The job markets were pretty bad, so during my time off, I decided to pursue one of my life goals, which was to get to the final table of a major poker tournament. I started playing online, and in my first month of part-time play made $8K. It was then that I realized that this may be something I enjoy doing for the rest of my life. Turns out that the top online poker players make MILLIONS a year.

I could have tried to go back to work, but I really enjoy spending time with the family. I have a fantastic wife (“Mrs. Fly”) and two great boys (“G” & “D”), and poker allows me to spend more time with them than a job at a bank would. I still can’t believe my oldest is 6 already, and I feel like I’ll blink and he’ll be off to college. My youngest will be 2 in March. He used to be a pain in the ass, but now he’s at that age where he’s just super fun to be around. My wife and I really enjoy spending time together, and working from home allows us to go out for lunch, run errands together, “etc.” The big bonus about the poker lifestyle is that when the kids get older, I can actually take the family somewhere great for the 2 months of summer vacation. All you really need to play online poker is a laptop and a reasonable internet connection – and you can get that almost anywhere in the world.

Because a lot of people may not be avid poker players (no limit holdem in particular), I decided to have most blog entries in two general parts: (i) a more general section for non-poker players, and (ii) a more poker-specific section for players. Since I have my goals for this year (both monetary and weight), I will also discuss results on a weekly basis, with a monthly summary on the sidebar. I’ll probably add some other sections as the blog progresses.

Fiddlesticks

2010-06-06T21:43:00.000-04:00

Running like dogshit. F POKER

The Calcutta beat

2010-06-04T11:43:00.000-04:00

Mamata Banerjee may have been crowned queen of Calcutta but it was circus queen Champa who strode majestically through the city the day after, blocking streets that the Trinamul boss has promised to keep clear even during her victory march on Saturday. Metro tracked the circus on the streets as Champa trekked from Gariahat to to Garia Bazar, throwing traffic out of gear and leaving the cops wondering under what section to book Mayawati’s mascot for trespassing on Mamata’s city…


11.32am: Champa, 30, takes over a flank of Bijon Setu with mahout Raju Singh, eight years her junior, navigating the traffic-infested concrete jungle she must cross to reach a circus that has pitched tent in Garia	11.34am: A police sergeant who had tried to stop Champa and failed walks back, walkie-talkie in hand, trying to make sense of her defiant trunk call

11.37am: Sir, er, ma’am, your licence and registration number, please, another traffic cop asks Champa and gets a jumbo ignore	12.03pm: After taking a roadside break off Bijon Setu, Raju climbs back to his perch holding Champa by the ears with her trunk supporting his legs

1.18pm: Champa gets a breather on the Bypass while an officer from Kasba police station asks forest officials if there is any provision in the Wildlife Protection Act to stop an elephant from walking down a city street. There isn’t	2.06pm: Born free and bonded to a circus but free to go for now — Champa waddles off going “chomp…chomp” on a leafy bough.

When I tried to backdoor a few cowboys

2010-06-02T16:14:00.002-04:00

courtesy plusEV

Mindboggling

2010-06-01T14:17:00.000-04:00

May 26, 2010, Mumbai An IndiGo flight, waiting for take off, taxiies onto the runway where a Jet Airways flight is about to land
April 2010, Mumbai The tyre of a JetLite flight from Lucknow bursts on landing in Mumbai
April 2010, Mumbai An accident is averted when a Kingfisher flight is asked to abort take-off minutes before a Go Air plane is cleared to land
September 2009, Delhi 213 passengers of an Air India flight to Riyadh have a miraculous escape at the Mumbai airport when the left engine of the aircraft catches fire because of an oil leak
August 2009, Dhaka A Delhi-bound Jet Airways flight carrying 139 persons skids off the runway just before taking off from Dhaka
June 2009, Calcutta 268 passengers aboard a Singapore Airlines flight have a lucky reprieve when a fuel tanker meant to refuel the plane catches fire
May 2009, Mumbai Over 250 passengers aboard a Jet Airways and an Air India flight emerge unhurt as the two aircraft headed towards each other in Mumbai abort take-offs
February 2009, Dibrugarh An Air India flight to Calcutta averts collision with an IAF plane over Jorhat. The IAF plane was not flying at 19,000 ft, the height it had permission for.
February 2009, Mumbai A helicopter carrying President Pratibha Patil lands on the same runway where an Air India flight has begun to take off. The pilot applies emergency brakes.
January 2009, Delhi Former LS speaker Somnath Chatterjee and other passengers aboard a Jet Airways flight survive narrowly when the pilot aborts landing seeing a China Southern Airlines plane on the runway.
June 2008, Mumbai Air India's flight from Jaipur overshoots destination Mumbai and continues to fly before its sleeping pilots are alerted by the Mumbai ATC and asked to return.
July 2007, Indore A Delhi-Bhopal-Indore-Delhi Jet Airways flight touches down hard at Indore, bounces repeatedly and moves from the runway. It finally comes to a halt close to the boundary wall.

Once bitten twice shy does not apply to the Indian government it seems. Tragic

On your marks

2010-05-26T15:17:00.003-04:00

Getting ready to move up in limits, after an eternity and being a total nit with thee bankroll.

RUN GOOD ONE TIME

well multiple times will be ok too.

###################################################

An interesting titbit I picked up while mega-trolling the internet:

There is something about being broke and having a dream that will allow you to pursue what you are dreaming of with the intensity it really takes to conquer something as difficult as being a poker pro. When you have a nice family life and a decent 401k, there just isn’t that same intensity or urgency to conquer things like there is when you are young, broke (more important than being young is being broke) and hungry. In
fact I think being broke is such a critical element of being a poker pro that I wonder how many of us poker pros have become successful AFTER achieving some reasonable amount of financial freedom in another career? When you have that nestegg, it is easy to skip a few days, take time away and do something else, not be too worried if you don’t progress rapidly and/or just kind of not fight for it with that same passion you might
if you had it all on the line.

Two powerful quotes come to mind come from two people I admire who could not be more different. Eminem said in his song “Lose Yourself,” that “Success is my only motherfucking option, failure’s not.” My golf hero, the legendary Ben Hogan, said, “My family wasn’t rich, they were poor. I feel sorry for rich kids now. I really do. Because they are never going to have the opportunity I had. Because I knew tough things and I had a tough day ALL MY LIFE. And I can handle tough things. They can’t. And every day that I progressed was a joy to me. And I recognized it every day.”

Touched my sole bro

2010-05-25T16:34:00.001-04:00

One of the best Kites review

"This movie not mean for the typical bollywood audiences. So far my personal opinion is concern this one best movie I proudly said Bollywood movie I ever see in my entire life. Nothing goes wrong this movie start and end up with breathtaking experience. One shot in this movie Barbra says to Ritik I don’t know you came from the which corner of world but what I know is life I am going to leave from now ..…one year….one day or one minute I want to leave with you…..I love this….what love, I liked this love in this movie.

In today’s scenario where we falling for the movies which is based on the one night stand or love less points. I personally feel this one is benchmark…I viewer its was a great pleasure watching Riktik-Barbara chemistry which is unseen specially in bollywood movies due to the some old actors.

I love this movie it touch my sole and know one can rate this movie……Paisa Wasool"

A gem from twoplustwo's resident photoshop wiz

2010-05-23T02:33:00.002-04:00

There are a whole bunch of poker jokes and subtle references to poker players, so if you arent into it, well then ...............

WTF is this shit

2010-05-18T20:29:00.001-04:00

One of the most disturbing youtube videos i've seen

Lucky is the chewy

2010-05-17T11:53:00.002-04:00

Andrew "luckychewy" Lichtenberger, who coached me for a period and is a good friend of mine , and one of the strongest and finest up and coming GenX poker players took down the Caesars W.S.O.P. Circuit Main Event for $190,000 a few days ago.

Final table payouts here

Wee ethics

2010-04-26T18:28:00.000-04:00

In the book “My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic”, the following Q&A takes place:

Question: Do you wash your hands after you have had a wee?

Saatchi: I have an acute sense of hygiene so I wash my hands before I have a wee.

GOLD!!!! via Amit Verma

Lollmao

2010-04-26T15:01:00.001-04:00

The story of how the Joe the Noob becomes Baller. . .

Joe puts money on Full Tilt and loses all.

Joe knows not what he does.

Joe buys Leggo Subscription and watches videos.

Joe crushes online poker.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image.

Joe cashes out and buys an Audi S4.

Joe gets a super hot gf.

Joe now Pawns Noobs.

Balla Joe now runs the streets and shouts out to Leggo!

Verbatim from here

Why I dont like Vir Sanghvi

2010-04-26T14:54:00.004-04:00

Everything was was going fine with this one, a mundane, boring, run-of-the-mill piece that one tries to skim through rather than try and digest every word, and then you reached the last line:

Twitter can be fun. I know because I tweet. I have 3.6 lakh followers. But it cannot be—and should not be—confused with the real world.

Really !!!! How trite can you be Vir Sanghvi????

More curveballs

2010-04-20T10:53:00.002-04:00

You can either dodge them or try and hit a homer.