Am Listening to How Proust can change your life by Alain de Botton

Here is a quote which tells me I will like Proust if and when I read him...
"Happiness is good for the body, but it is grief that develops the power of the mind"

Into the Distance...Coming back to life...

9.6 km in 48 min y'day
21 km in 1hr 56 min today in traffic b/w Shivaji Park to Wilson College and back (my regular Sunday run)

Ran both alone, as is usual. Feels good to get back into some groove after the disastrous ultra.

I think I have symptoms of Asperger's syndrome -> Only hitch is that I lack any of the mindblowing computing skills but I tend to take most things literally, hate noise, hate crowds, like to keep things organized, do one thing at a time, ...

Also saw Inglourious Basterds. Fairly ordinary for what one would expect from a QT movie. Marginal amount of the expected amount of violence - The Bear Jew is the only novelty item. Too long for too little entertainment. Could watch if one had nothing else to do...

Mary and Max...

is an outstanding claymation movie and tells the story of an 8 year old girl in Australia and her 40 something pen friend (obese guy) in the USA and how their extra-ordinary friendship pans out over 20 years or so.

Strongly recommended if you love animated flicks. Strongly recommended if you love off-beat scripts and strongly recommended if you love good movies. And

This is my favourite to win the Oscar in its category.

In the tradition of the movie, here is a P.S. -> A random look at the IMDB entry for Toni Collette reveals "...At the age of 11 she showed her phenomenal acting skills when she faked appendicitis out of boredom and longing for attention; her act was so convincing that doctors had to remove her appendix, even though the test showed nothing wrong with it...." I already love this woman... One more addition to the crush list

Update: I forgot I had seen Up and liked that immensely too. Up has a lot more American humour and frankly I loved it while M&M is more heartwarming and I am a sucker for heartwarmers. So now I am confused :( Why can't they split the Oscar?

sub 3 hr marathon...ok, Nobel Prize in Physics... not so fast!

If you thought Nobel Prize winners toil away for years in anonymity till that magic moment, looking like something from Dilbert, think again!

Click on this link and behold the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Physics!

And yes, if you want to read his Nobel Prize lecture, read this also

Long Awaited Event - Grilled Sandwiches

I have been waiting for almost 4-5 years ("why" is an illegal question!) to buy a sandwich grill.
I finally flicked one that my mom got as a gift and made my first ever grilled sandwiches today.
I am overwhelmed by a desire to open a restaurant now ;)

Walk it off

On a day when my mind has been filled with large amounts of pent up frustration, I decided to walk it off, all the way home from work. It has been a while since I walked this much distance (we are not talking abt last week's race, ok!?) especially with a bag on my back.

I am feeling so much relieved. I am home reading last week's issue of OPEN with an interview with Sachin. Life in short is good.

Too often we (I included!) let frustration get to us. Others say "Sleep it off." My friends say "Run it off." For those of you who don't run, I say "Walk it off."

Manjunath's death anniversary

It is four years since Manju was murdered lest we forget. Manju, we will not forget you...

And as if his memory was not sobering enough, there is dishearterning news of this person named Anand Prakash who has been abducted on his job in Uttarakhand
What will it take for us to demonstrate we have a conscience?

Stephen Fry and the twit on your face...

Click on this for some delightful tweets from the one and only Fry