Happy Earth Day! April 22, 2009

Click HERE to view the message, or HERE to create your own geoGreeting (thanks MAY).

And for more fun with Google Lat video messages, click HERE (thanks JOSH).

Fantastic Facebook Development April 8, 2009

Have you ever received a virtual chocolate chip cookie, flowering tulip pot, or neon skateboard and not quite known what to do with it? How touching! Ok, now what… send one back?

Given the success of virtual gifts it’s obvious our generation has developed a strong interest in this manner of expressing sentiments, but a new initiative launched in the Facebook Gift Shop today allows for gift-giving with purpose. Very cool and, not surprisingly, it’s already raised thousands of dollars since going live.  Also, check out Facebook for Good .

Social media for positive change — Hooray!

Responses to HFCS Commercials February 19, 2009

There’s something very sneaky about the series of commercials by the Corn Refiners Association defending high fructose corn syrup. Have you seen them? I was surprised to see how many spoofs people have posted on YouTube, and guess I’m not the only one aggravated by this advertising campaign…

“The Mothers”

“The Couple”

“The Brothers”

Get the facts.

Spellbound January 28, 2009

Here’s a fun link, courtesy of my brother-in-law, to a quiz on The 25 Most Commonly Misspelled Words.

A Montréal Picture Book January 4, 2009

(click images to enlarge, if you like)

As it was the first visit to Montréal for both Shastri and Mum, we decided to take the team up Mont Royal for a breathtaking introduction to the city. Despite his Siberian armor, Shastri was frozen and became singularly preoccupied… ‘How can I get the team to abort Operation: Brisk Winter Hike? If they wont, when can I ditch the team and bolt back to the car?’

As you can tell, our mothers on the other hand were both grinning from ear to ear.

Nonetheless, we did make it to the chalet, imbibed hot chocolates, and headed back out to enjoy the view (for about as long as it took to take this photo). Ok, we’re winter wimps, but it was COLD!

The highlight of the week was by far a visit to the historic home of William Sutherland and May Bolles Maxwell.

We thought a stroll through Old Town might make for another enjoyable afternoon, but only made it as far as a snow/ice bank.

Even enlisting the help of a passing snow plow proved fruitless. The team’s morale began to fade as passing tourists snapped photos and left.

But then Superstar Maram emerged from a neighboring store, borrowed shovel in hand, and saved the day (Mom, Mahtab, Shastri, and Payam look on).

Eventually, we did make it to Old Town…

…and McGill Avenue to boot!

And, for the remainder of the week, we stayed indoors; sipping warm beverages, playing Cranium and Dutch Blitz, and enjoying winter from behind double-paned glass!

Many thanks to the Montréal contingent for a most enjoyable week! Now, who wants to visit California?

What do you think this is? December 28, 2008

Shastri’s Cranium Sculpturade.

Clue: Thing (the photos represent two different attempts at demonstrating the same thing)

Miraculously, Maram got it.

Blind(cc)-Sided December 23, 2008

On more than one occasion in recent weeks, I’ve been one in a party of fully-fledged/disclosed email recipients to’ve been blind-sided by a reply-to-all from a Bcc-line lurker.  So now I’m curious…

1.) How common an occurrence is this? Have you ever reply-to-all’ed from the Bcc line? Or, have you ever been on the receiving end of a ‘Hey! Where’d s/he come from??’ email?

and

2.) Why is it even possible to reply-to-all from the Bcc line? When would it ever be useful? I think some email systems have removed the possibility, but shouldn’t the coding powers-that-be save the general emailing public at large from all such potential embarassment?

Ode to the Mango December 11, 2008

In you,
colors of sunset
envelope juice so succulent
sugar and honey blush.

And sticky rivers of laughter
trickle from fingers to elbows
as strands of delicious memories
stick between my teeth.

For in you,
I still taste our childhood joy
perched high in grandma’s tree
so busy searching for the ripest, sweetest prize
that we rarely managed to make it
past the front yard and into the house
for weekly afternoon tea.

Ravi, Singapore (circa 1985)

How well do you know (y)our rights? December 9, 2008

By a vote of 48 for, 0 against, and 8 abstentions (Belorussia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Ukraine, USSR, and Yugoslavia), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by a United Nations General Assembly session in Paris on 10 December 1948.

Now, on its 60th birthday, how do you score? If not so well, try this quiz instead.

Happy learning and happy Human Rights Day!

Boxed Thinking December 4, 2008

Amidst the stack of license, social security, job, and (way too many) other applications we’ve been completing lately, I’ve made a discovery: Payam’s white! Really? Why hasn’t anyone informed the “sir, you’ve been randomly selected…” TSA staff?

Hmm… curious how people react to inane questions of the variety depicted above, I went online and came across an interesting site called Please mark only one.

And, I wrote this poem:

Form after form and always the same demand:
“Please mark one (and only one) box.”

Forget blood permeates bordered land
Blood permeates annoying checkboxes

Blood of our ancestors spilt across centuries and ages and pages of shared history
And still this obsession to categorize my, your, their blood?

Why?

After all, ashes to ashes and dust to dust
“Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust?“

Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon
“Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust?”

I breathe atoms of you
Breathe atoms of we
Inhale molecules and matter
And particles scattered
Across borders and ages and find
Me in you in us in them and find

My people is you.