hoity-toity_Apollonian

"Lisa the blues isn't about feeling better. It's about making other people feel WORSE, and making a few bucks while you're at it." that was Bleeding Gum Murphy from The Simpsons.
Last night read an article about 100 years of blues then heard a bit about it on PRI. I knew about some blues bigwigs and that's about it. Never really thought about it like how it was born and who were the people who started playing the music in mainstream and who really made it famous.
But now from what I think its a musical form born out of suppression and the songs came from within by all the oppression and pain inflicted by segregation. Blind Lemon Jefferson was one of the first mainstream male blues singers who tasted some success but he died on the streets of Chicago because of cold!!! He made close to 160 recording in just 4 years.
Anyways one thing that I don't cannot understand is how come blues became so famous among white musicians in England???
If you guys are interested check out this site about the blues by PBS

A new ruling by the court has changed 9/11 from a mourning day to a glory day for people who can file lawsuits against airlines and the port authority. I don't think it is right, but I guess its part of capitalism or something like that.

Just read this story the "New Scientist". People like Parag, Mayuresh and all those researchers out there hats off to you for thinking of some unthinkable things. I guess you think of all those weird possibilities and try to make it possible and thereby give out something to the community in someway or the other. I can never even think about a name like "living condom" let alone coming up with such an idea.

My best investment since coming to Richmond, a radio clock for my bathroom. It is just so much fun listening to the radio while getting ready.
Today Bob Edwards (He is one of my favourite interviewers) interviewed Robert Redford. Mayuresh you might want to note that he is in Washington DC for Nancy Hanks Lecture series on Public Policy. He made a couple of good points and spoke about why he started Sundance. The best point I thought he made was "Entertainment industry is a business but in last few years it has changed to such an extent that people don't care about the creative objectives, rather they take a back seat. That is the reason Sundance is a good creative platform for these people who want to/are making films with a difference".
One more very interesting story covered in the morning was kind of like the movie "City of gods". But this one involved gangs from El Salvador. The gang members become gang members because some parents leave (as in leave they don't come back) there children on the streets to go in search of a better life in USA. One more aspect to this is that sometimes INS deports people who were arrested in USA for drug trafficking and similar kind of problems. They were covering the story of a one person who came to USA when he was 3. Now he is in his 20's. He has never been to El Salvador after coming to USA, he knows nobody in El Salvador and now he is deported to El Salvador. He was thought to be related to some gang back from USA because of the tattoos that he had. The story actually ended there (Or I started the shower so couldnot hear the story afterwards). But I think this can be the subject of a very intense story. The pain, the trauma it must be very hard.
Yesterday I heard Yo-Yo Ma for the first time. Incidentally NPR had a story on him yesterday and one of my officemates had a CD. This man is just so awesome. He has his own style of music but I think the best part him is how he takes diffrent forms or types of music and makes music with that type of music.

This is just in continuation of the discussion that started on Parag's blog by Parag and Mayuresh.
I looked at how many countries are there in our world, by considering Taiwan as a country there are 193 else 192.
Following is a list of countries where I think their is some kind of civil unrest is going on. The Yes's mean that this country have violence in relation to muslim fundamentalism while No's are for Violence exists but not because of muslim fundamentalists.
Afghanistan Yes
Albania Yes
Algeria Yes
Armenia Yes
Bolivia No
Bosnia and Herzegovina Yes
Botswana No
Cambodia No
Chad No
Chile No
Colombia No
Congo, Republic of the Not sure but probably/may b
Congo, Democratic Republic Not sure but probably/may b
Croatia Yes
East Timor Yes
Egypt Yes
El Salvador No
Ethiopia Not sure but probably/may b
Grenada No
Haiti No
India Yes
Indonesia Yes
Iran Yes
Iraq Yes
Ireland No
Israel Yes
Korea, North No
Kuwait Yes
Laos Not sure but probably/may b
Liberia No
Libya Yes
Malaysia Yes
Myanmar (Burma) No
Namibia No
Nepal No
Nicaragua No
Nigeria Yes
Pakistan Yes
Panama No
Peru No
Philippines Yes
Russia Yes
Rwanda Yes
Saudi Arabia Yes
Serbia and Montenegro Yes
Sierra Leone Not sure but probably/may b
Somalia Yes
Sri Lanka No
Sudan Yes
Syria Yes
Thailand Yes
Turkmenistan Not sure but probably/may b
United Arab Emirates Yes
United Kingdom Yes
United States Yes
Venezuela No
Zimbabwe No

That is 57 countries, which are having problems of some sort and 136 countries which don't have civil unrest or I am unaware of it. Countries with problems related to muslim funamentalism or in some way muslims are a part of reason is 30 (I did not include the "may be ones" in this count). That is 52.63%. This whole thing is purely based on my conceptions and the news that I read, so this might be incorrect information. But I guess no matter how much anybody tries to rationalize it just looking at numbers will suggest that muslims are involved in some form or other for the unrest. That is a big number for one religion to be involved in trouble through out the world. I am not anti anything or pro anything but I think this just suggests some big time change is what is the much needed order of the day. I think I am just anti violence and killing people.

Another week starts and its just so boring for the first couple of hours. The debate in my mind over whether I should get cable or not got really hot after watching NFL yesterday. But "no TV" is still winning and ahead by a few points.
The US Open is ended this week and not so unexpected results. But I guess kudos to the organizers and mainly players, after losing out so many days of no play but still managing it to finish it in time. Justin Henin-Hardenne was the winner on the women's side I thought she was a well deserved winner. Except for the match against Capriati she was very much in control. Brad suggested that she was acting and trying to throw Capriati off when she was cramping, I think even if she was acting the on court theatrics are very much a part of the game. But I just admired her for her resilliance, she broke Capriati's serve twice when she was serving for the match. Her forehand was giving her trouble through out the match but she was right on target when she needed it the most. That just shows that winners have some extra special things in reserve when it is needed. Roddick well he just overpowered his opponents. He just overwhelmed them with his power tennis, some really unbelievable strength. People say that power tennis is ruining tennis, but I think if you can win matches with power so be it.
Politicians is a weird specie, they will cry foul and throw mud at the opponents for the weirdest reasons. Gray Davis attacked Arnold for his ethenic accent. I don't know I think their are far more better things to attack Arnold with than talking about his accent.
The biggest medicine related news for me is that SARS might be making a comeback.
Ariel Sharon has finally landed in India and he has a strong contingent of close to 150 delegates. I think that is a very good sign from business perspective. Hehehehehe and guess who is most concerned with the visit, Pakistan.
Less than two more weeks and I will see my parents. Most importanly I am happy that they will get to see Ashwini.
Wish list for this month: I hope we can make it to the Formula 1 race in Indy. That would be so much fun.

Back to work after a long long very long weekend. Got off work on Thursdat evening and then next 3.5 days just had too much fun. Did not do anything special but just speding time with Mayuresh and other friends was so much fun. Tried a new drink called Hypnotic. Its a different drink, made out of Vodka and Cognac!!! Sounds tasty right, it was tasty.
Over the weekend saw this movie called 3Deewaerin. Its made by Nagesh Kukunoor. Its a very very different movie compared to his last three movies. The reviews and box offfice performance of the movie were pretty pathetic, but after watching the movie just failed to understand why didn't this movie failed do well???? If Mayruesh, Aditya and I can like the movie then other people back home should also like it. The story is very unusual, very unexpected turn of events. Is it like people don't like these type of movies because they are unpredictable? or is it because it didn't have any songs? or is it because the movie didn't have a masala number? It's just so very hard to understand it. He should seriously think about releasing the movie internationally, probably it will be appreciated in some other country if not in India. The movie had a character who had this prisoner who does not want to get out of the prison because he is afraid if the society will accept him or not. Then there was a character who had AIDS. The movie is not only about main characters but I thought it had a suttle social message or kind of like "making people think" kind of quality.
I was kind of away from the news over the weekend, just read about the decapitated pizza delivery guy. How sick is that? Unbelievable, how can anybody come up with such a horrifying idea?
U.S. Open kind of got screwed up because of the rain. The most affected person because of the rain delays is this no named tennis player Aaron Krickstein who retired a whilre ago. This is because he has to keep watching the most painful defeat of his career every year. Read the story for details.