Friday, December 28, 2007

A winter morning tale

The weather here was been unseasonably sunny and bright for the past couple of days. You might say good for you, but i had a hard time sleeping in the morning. The shinny daylight would come in through my bedroom curtains and wake me up early in the morning. Yesterday i was glad to wake up to a cloady gloomy day around noon:) Everything has its own place.

Painting: Camille PISSARRO, French 1831–1903 , Boulevard Montmartre, morning, cloudy weather 1897

Joy of Cooking

I spent hours in the kitchen today cooking for a small party i'm having tomorrow. It's been a while for me since i cooked, real cooking. It's almost a year that i have adaopted a healthy eating diet, preparing low fat meals, whole grains, ... . And you know that style, although good for you, doesn't much go inline with a real Persian kitchen. So today i cut myself a break, i cooked the old style, using Kermanshahi butter and fried onions in my stew. I made Mirzaghasemi the authentic Rashti style, frying the barbecued eggplants... . My friend came over and made hummus, not cutting back on tahini and olive oil. We poured exactly the amount of oil required for the cake into the batter. I frosted it with real good melted chocolate. I enjoyed my time in the kitchen.

P.S. Can somebody come and help me clean up now?:)

Monday, December 24, 2007

A Musical Christmas of '07

It's Christmas eve. I'm home alone, still recovering from my cold. PBS is having the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on, and next is the Boston Pops (photo above). Christmas to me means music, and lot and lots of it, it's a happy season:)

P.S. If you're home alone tonight too, here's my present to you, the old good cartoon of my childhood years.
P.S.2. PBS continued with Christmas at Belmont, which was quite good too. Thanks god for pbs!

Friday, December 21, 2007

Happy Yalda

It is the longest night of the year, Yalda night. Yalda to me means family. The special noodle-rice dish that my mom insists we have to have at Yalda to master our lives in the months to follow. It means the big crystal bowl of pomegranates, which was my job to prepare when i grow older. It means my dad bringing home the last watermelon of the season. It means Yalda nuts with Basloghs that i used to love, and many other tastes and smells. It means playing backgammon on the beautifully hand crafted family piece. It means bibliomancy from Hafez collection of poems. I miss my family in this Yalda night, maybe more than before cause i'm down with a cold.

Happy Yalda to you all. I wish for you and me the strength to endure the longest of the dark in our lives to wake up to the dawn of a bright Sun.

P.S.1. Thanks for your comments on the last post. I'll get back to them as soon as i feel physically better.
P.S.2. I so much crave Baslogh. I'm gonna experiment and make some when i get better. Here's the recipe i've found on the web.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Where is our social manner?

Yesterday someone sent me a video showing a naked man walking in the middle of a crowded street in Tehran. He shouts and hits himself and it is visible that the poor man is mentally sick. After a while the police comes and takes him into custody.

Now the video is recorded by what seems to be a young man and his friend on a cell phone camera device. So what is most audible in the video is the comments and laughs between these two boys. And that is what made me really upset. They laugh and make fun of the naked retard man, like they are the audience of a comic show, and boast about how this video they're shooting is gonna be a hit on the internet. It was truly so painful to listen to those comments, and i spare you from the experiance. It makes me sad to witness how socially indecent the young generation of my fellow iranians has become. Isn't treating a sick person with compassion part of social codes to be honored in any society, let alone a so called religious one ? Those type of behaviors used to bother me immensely, and God knows that was so frequent in everyday life in iran.

It could as well be that i've lived in academia for the past few years and am only exposed to an above normal environmet, but since i came to US i have not witnessed a single thing like that here. Where is the problem? Why is that we have failed to teach our youngsters the very basic social codes?

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Sundays with Rain and Icicles*

Freezing rain in the city for a couple of days and now the trees are all ice covered. In the dim light of the cloudy days they look like beautifully made crystals. I look at them with the peace of mind knowing the bare branches are in their winter sleep and probably wouldn't feel the cold ice all over their skin. The same ice that has been a feast to my eyes past few days. The grass however is still green, but that too is covered in a layer of thin ice. It's like somebody has carefully laid a sheer fragile throw over them to protect them from the cold. This icy green is something i had never seen before.
Cold can be beautiful too.
*-The title is inspired by Leva's Sunday pictures.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Handel's Messiah

Listen Here.

"Yet once, a little while
and i will shake
the heavens and the earth
the sea and the dry land.
and I will shake all nations;
and the desire of all nations shall come."

As i sat there and listened to the orchestra playing, and the chorus singing these biblical verses, i made a wish. That God would shake me the same way too.

Some interesting facts about Handel's Messiah
  1. It was interesting to find the similarity between the above verses and the Muslim Iranians' new year prayer.
  2. Handel wrote this in English; it was Mozart who later on translated the verses to German and rearranged the oratorio to make it possible to be played in a more classic (no organ) orchestra. The performance i went to tonight was Mozart's arrangement of Handel's Messiah, and it was thus in German. We were given bilingual pamphlets.
  3. It used to be performed by an all male (men and boys) choir. I suppose they didn't like the idea of women singing the bible!
  4. When it came to the famous Halleluja part, everybody in the audience stood up. You could call it national anthem of heavens i suppose:) They say that King George II rose to his feet at this point, and so the tradition was rooted.
  5. German always sounded rough to my ears. If you share that opinion wait till you hear a choir sing Messiah. You'll look at German differently.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

My worried STATA!

Okay this is one of those things you might find funny only if you're worked with the statistical software STATA. But i find it pretty amusing so there we go:
When you need to increase the memory assigned to the software- and that occasionally happens when you're working with big datasets, if you give the command while you already have some variables out there, the STATA will comment "no; data in memory would be lost". This "no" in the beginning of the error comment is so funny. I picture a worried mom on the other side of the monitor telling a caring "no" to his kid when he comes to the table with unwashed hands!

P.S. Another interesting comment I received from the software today: "STATA needs attention!" who doesn't, buddy?:)

Saturday, December 01, 2007

I am Iran; Do Not Bomb Me!

My dear friends Tameshk and Nazy made this beautiful slide show of Iran. The work is inspired by anti-war protests in San Francisco and Berkeley in October and November.
Please share the video.

If you can't access Youtube, watch it here:
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/11/30/1617352/Nazy-2-utube.mov

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Lamingtons!


I can't believe how much work it was!
Lamingtons are some kind of Australian treats. They are cake cubes, coated in a layer of chocolate icing then desiccated coconut. It took me 2 days and a totally wrecked kitchen and a back pain to make these, but it was worthed. I MADE Lamingtons :D
I also successfully made Tameshk's turkey meatloaf, plus some Magic cookie bars. I've had my share of cooking this thanksgiving weekend, from now on, i'll just sit back and eat:) Btw, this video teaches you how to cut the turkey, in case you need to perform the task tomorrow, i'll again sit back and eat the cut turkey!

Friday, November 16, 2007

Wishes do not wash the dishes* !

Or equivalently, wishes do not pack your stuff:) I have nagged here about how i hate packing before, i remember. And I always end up un-packed, behind my laptop late at night (it's 12:35) when i have to wake up early and hit the road the next morning.
I'm going hiking in Tennessee. I'll post a photo here when i come back. Have a good weekend everyone.

*I heard this sentence from one of my English teachers years ago, and it stuck in my mind. I use it from time to time, but i googled it now and apparently it is not a common expression.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Sunday, November 11, 2007

La Boheme

I went to the opera of La Boheme in our Krannert Center today. I don't have a classical music education, but there is something about opera that gets me. The direct exposure to the music that comes not from a man-made instrument, but from flesh and blood. This was actually my second experience of a live opera. The other one was Oedipus a couple of years ago. Although the performers of Oedipus were well known, and La Boheme was produced by the theather department in UIUC, but I liked it better.

The pick of the show for me was in the first act when Rodolfo was telling Mimi of his love for her and she would reply back, all happening under the gentle mist of the moonlight. As their voices went higher and higher I could feel something building in me, like a fire ball of passion that would expands till the point that it wanted to burst out of me, like a crazy flow in my blood vessels that would rise up each second with the music.
What an amazing feeling. What a wonderful performance.

-An economic footnote: Did you know that in 18-19th century the word "Consumption" was used to refer to Tuberculosis!
-A technical footnote: The opera had real time English super-titles. It was much more convinient than looking into booklets as we had to do in Oedipus.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Do you backup?

I went on a trip past couple of day, came back to find my fitness blog is lost. Yes, lost, it says no posts available. I still hopeful that the host fixes this, cause it's not only my blog with this problem, many of my friends there also lost their blog content.

But it would be a tragedy to me if i were to lose my posts here. Does any of you know of an "easy" way to backup a blogger weblog?

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Reverse Speech

This  video is really interesting. I ran into it in a
friend's gmail status. It's a part of a TED talk.
You might think the song is tailored to work that
way... it could have, but the idea of Reverse Speech
is that even in the statements we make, there
are words and phrases spoken unconsciously that are
revealed only when our recorded speech is played in
reverse.

A famouse example is
Neil Armstrong's "That's one
small step for man" , which in reverse would sound
like "Man will space walk." Read more about it here
and here.I remember in one episode of The Simpsons,
they showed
a popular teenagers rock band playing a song
which in reverse would read "Join the Army"!

Post Script: by writing this post i didn't mean that i totally believe or support
this Reverse Speech theory. It was a new thing to me and i found it interesting.
Now whether we speak words unconscionably, is something i look skeptical to as well.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Halloween dream costume

It's Halloween again.
Let's assume, and i emphasize "assume", you could get "any" costume you wish for, and lets assume you have an occasion to wear it to. What would be your choice? Something like your dream costume for this year...

I would opt for a traditional Spanish dancer. You know, those red and black dresses with the big layered skirts, the thread shawl and the pulled back hair with a big red flower pin. Have you seen Carmen? Something like that :)

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Meeting your cyber-friends... priceless!


Can you recall when you were just a kid in your birthday party (or the new year's day whichever applies) , facing your beautifully wrapped presents. The joy to unwrap each gift and discover what's inside is so splendid. This does not quite describe my excitement to have met a number of my cyber friends this past weekend, but it kinda resembles the feeling.
Tonight although i am under-the-weather, i feel so good to have this blog that made it possible to get to know a new family of good friends.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Georgian State Dance Company


I went to the Georgian State Dance Company performance tonight. It was amazing, period. The music, the colors, the costume, and the dances... oh, those dances. I can't even begin to describe those unbelievable steps and moves.
They used to be on Broadway and now they are on tour. Don't miss them if they come along your town.

P.S. Although i am a bit intimidated and discouraged now: if that is dancing, then what i've been trying to learn this past year is kids play:)

Friday, October 19, 2007

Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman


Myths are public Dreams,

And Dreams are private Myths

It is such pleasure to go to a play and enjoy every minute of it. I went to a performance of Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses in our university tonight. I had been to her adaptation of Haft-Peykar (Mirror of the invisible worlds) in Chicago this summer and quite liked it. But this one tonight cast a spell on me. You know I am a sucker for stories and this play is an adaptation of nine of the stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the tales of ancient gods and heroes. A celebration of love and life, connecting the lives of these mythical characters to our contemporary experiences. She pronounces the Power of love in healing, restoration and survival. Stories so wonderfully told and played,
  • The story of Midas and his golden touch,
  • Alcyone and Ceyx and the secret of those seven calm days of the oceans,
  • Erysichthon whose insatiable hunger had him ate himself,
  • Orpheus who went to the underworld to bring back his love Eurydic
  • Myrrha who refused to take a lover and thus brought Aphrodite's fury upon her
  • Phaeton who asked for his dad's car keys(!)
  • Eros and his forbidden love for the the beautiful Psyche
  • And of Baucis and Philemon and their wish to die together.
Wow what an amazing night it was. A night of so many myths.

The set was also very impressive with a real big pool full of water in the middle and the gods passage on the top. During the play, the sounds of water and the reflections on the pool surface added much to the magic of the play. If you are around, don't miss this wonderful performance.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Fantasies


Fantasies... One of my many is sleeping under the rain. Just lying on the grass, in a warm summer night and feel the touch of the raindrops on my skin. Pushing my wet palms to the muddy grass and feel as if i'm the thirsty ground soaking each drop of the rain that hits it. Letting the rain wash over me, drop by drop by drop.

Except for in reality i'm too scared of insects, too worried to catch a cold, too afraid of being out alone in dark... So all together it adds up to a no no. But hey, it's a fantasy; you don't need to get real! And now that we're fantasizing can i please have this song played on the background too?:)

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Friends


Having a good friend in this bad world, is like having a cup of hot coffee in a cold day. It wouldn't make the weather any warmer, but it will warm up your heart.

P.S. I watched El Laberinto del Fauno tonight. Great film.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Are you anyone's favorite person?

Two types of people...
Those with stars in their eyes when being asked this question,
And those whose eyes seek a refuge from the answer.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Sweet as Aspartame*

Wierd Al Yankovic was in Champaign yesterday. His concert was quit fun. I specifically liked his parody of James Blunt titled "you're pitiful!", it was so funny. Read a bout the debate about the song here and you can download it from there too. Well he did many parodies that didn't get me much because i didn't know the original versions. But the american kids there were quite enjoying themselves. Here's some of his songs i liked: His White and Nerdy is my brother's all time favorite! Amish Paradise is good too! Look at this Trapped in Drive through cartoon clip, it's looong but very funny. His We all have Cellphones is quite hilarious too, and everybody were pulling out their cellphones and waiving them, quite a view in the dark assembly hall. His stage performance of the song Albauerque is quite exciting, in the part where he is in the doughnout shop asking for different doughnots (look at minute 4:50), he included all the different possible berry doughnots: strawberry, rasberry, blueberry, cranberry, blackberry, gooseberry , loganberry, and... Halle Berry!!!

* "Sweet as Aspartame" is directly from one of Wierd Al's lyrics. He referred to his girl being sweet as aspartame! And so was his concert yesterday, not a real one, but a sweet substitute.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Mist and the Moonlight

"When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie that's amore..."
It was a full moon tonight, and such a beautiful one. I went out earlier in the evening, and the moon was in a wonderful bloom in the clear night sky. Now a few minutes ago i went out again to rent a movie, and the city is covered in a thick white mist. I walked literally in the clouds to the blockbuster.

P.S. Thanks for your comments on the previous post. I guess i'll keep it open for a while before i count the votes:)

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

What do you think?


What do you think the baby in the picture feels like? A friend of mine who shared the photo believes that the baby is suffering. I on the contrary say that he is amazed and quite happy. So we said I post the picture here and see what you guys think? Is the blue eye baby gonna laugh or cry after the kissing is over?:)
Please comment!

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Motherland


I went out to buy some bread. The weather outside was delightful. I didn't want to drive back home. It was one of those nights that you like to just take a long walk with a friend and let the calm of the dark velvety sky and the singing of jeerjeeraks(!) soak into you. I thought if i were in Iran i would call up this and that friend and we would go to Park-Jamshidiye... And thus the thoughts came back to me again. The homeland. Where your school buddies whom you can call up late in the evening are.

My dear friend Nazy has asked me to write about "Vatan". For a person like me, who is hanging in between two countries, this is a sensitive topic to write about. I now can't name either of these two counties as a land i belong to. I was born and raised in Iran. If I like it or not, my mindset has formed there. My values, my insights, my way of living.

However there were many things about Iran that made me feel like a cast away there. Things that don't happen to you in US. In Iran, your daily encounters are often tough and hurtful. People are often harsh to you, the doorman, the taxi drivers, the bank clerk, the secratary, the sales associate, ... . You have no space there, any minutes you should expect anybody to come and confront you for how you walk, how you talk, how you are. In Iran you grow up to learn how to hide your thoughts, how to fade into the crowd, how to suppress your opinion. In Iran you're robbed out of excitements, out of laughs, out of colors, out of music and out of silly small things that make a package called youth.

Perhaps these feelings are personal, perhaps now the kids in iran experience a happier life. Perhaps iran is "nice"r since the gloomy day i left it. But i can't let go of the feeling that the people i see around me here, are more like me. I feel less of a cast aways in this country that is not my homeland.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Family

Family... you don't often realize what a huge source of constant care and love they are to you till for any reason you're robbed out of it. My parents left for Iran today. My mom stayed here for almost 5 months. I turned on the tv to kill the silence, Emmy's red carpet interviews are on, and i'm thinking how much my mom would like watching this...
Tonight my small apartment looks and feels cold and blue.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Haale


Oh my adored,
you set me on fire.
Now come,
see the smoke
rising high off me.


I'm not sure if it was solely the magic of the powerful lyrics of Rumi and Hafez in their original words, or her music also had a say, but i very much enjoyed Haale's performance at Highdive tonight. I actually had been to her concert in the World Bank for the Iranian New Year last March. But tonight, in the cozy nightclub of our small town, her music touched me deep.

Haale's upcoming performances in Midwest:
FRI SEP 14 MADISON WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL Memorial Theater at Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison WI
SAT SEP 15 CHICAGO WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL Venue TBA, Chicago IL
SUN SEP 16 GLOBAL UNION FESTIVAL Alverno Presents/Alverno College, Milwaukee WI

Sunday, September 09, 2007

A Musical Babel

I went to a concert in our university today. It was a duet for Tar (a classic persian instrument) and Piano . Somehow the music to me felt like a troubled relationship. The Tar was talking in its own language and the Piano was sincerely trying to sing along, but sounded dull and irrelevant. Listening to the Piano's desperate struggle was kinda heartbreaking.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Those were the days, my friend*

Morning. I open my eyes. Look at the radio clock in the bookshelf in front of my bed. Reach for my laptop. Adjust my pillows. Stay beneath the sheets, checking my emails, blogs, and feed reader. And the news hit me. Pavarotti is dead. Sad, sad way to start a day.

* I looked to find his performance of "Those were the days". I had it on tape in my car in Iran, and used to shout along with his heavenly voice while driving...:)

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Who will wipe your tears?

I've never been much into Iranian pop music. Not that I have anything against it, but since I was a kid i had this passion for the "foreign" songs my mom listened to, and so my musical path kinda went in a different direction. But still there are a couple of Iranian pop singers that I like alot. One is Ebi. He is a very popular singer, with lots of popular songs. He also is a very nice and easygoing person. In his concerts he mixes with the crowd, approaches them and uses them as his chorus. Ebi was in concert in Chicago last night.

What a concert! What a night! My vocal cords are scratched. My ears are clogged. My calf muscles cramped from standing and dancing for hours on high heels! My eyes are red from the long night drive back home. But yet my mind still feels the content from its last night climax.

He has a unique voice. Strong and manly, but yet soft. Having him in in flesh and blood, singing the high notes that would have my heart beat was at first unbelievable, and then wonderful. I had never been to a concert where i could sing along most of the songs. And it is an amazing experience, the lyrics march through your brain like a movies subtitles, your lips pronounce the words, but your ears only hear them in the singers voice.

And then there is the magic of your mother tongue. No matter how fond of foreign music you are, still the words in your own language bear a heavier weight. You hear the words and they get you back to a journey in your mind. Old and new memories. You remember speaking these words to a person yourself. Hearing them from someone. Having laughed with some. Sheding tears with others. Unless most your memories are also in another language, no foreign song could have this big of an impact on you. Another aspect of the Power of the lyrics.

One of Ebi's songs has such impact on me, more on the rainy part i'm afraid. When the concert was almost finished and i was thinking I got away with it, he sang it. Our song. I found my knees shaking. I had to sit down. Sat down I did, as far from my friends as i could. And i looked at him bringing the words back to life in high notes:

Who will wipe your tears,
in your nights of sorrow
Whose fingers will brush your hair,
when you don't have me anylonger
Whose shoulders will host your sobs yet again
whom will you blame
when stars don't shine in the sky
Who will stand by you,
even in the lonegst of the long nights
till the smile is back on your lips,
at the rise of the new dawn

To my own surprise I hold back my tears. I rejoiced the song and i cherished the memory of a lost friend, the one who named me Jeerjeerak:)

--------------------------------
P.S. to the previous post:
Ebi has a song called پشت ديوار شب Reading something like this: On the other side of the dark night wall is a path to his heart, where among the all good things he counts to happen there, is the lady-sun doing her eyebrows;)

P.S. to this one(!):
This was such a looooong post. I guess i'm off the hook of updating here for quite a while:)))

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

A big change

A big change in me. Really BIG:) You'll be surprised the next time you see me in person! Mysterious post, i agree, but I don't want to give it away in my weblog. Just wanted to put this date down somewhere for the record!!!

Monday, August 27, 2007

The educated sandwich!

If you happen to pass by downtown Indianapolis, go and get an educated sandwich from Indianapolis Teachers Association coffeeshop!!! They are closed on Sundays though:)

Nice downtown btw, the streets were red, the sky was blue and the rhythm was in the air (or in my feet for that matter!)

Monday, August 20, 2007

Car Talk!

I so much enjoy driving on Saturday mornings in the boring midwest roads! Guess why? Well, i've gave it out already:))) In case you didn't know, -seriously is there anyone who doesn't know?;) - Car Talk is a radio talk show on NPR broadcasted on Saturdays. There are two brothers hosting the show, taking questions about car problems from callers. And they are soooooooooooooooooooo funny. I have absolutely zero knowledge and inerest in car mechanics, but i love their show. And it specially is even more enjoyable when you're driving while listening. If you have not listened to their program, do it once for me:) You're missing some good fun. Okay here's a taste: At the end of their show they introduce their crew. The complete list can be found here. Pick up a few names and try reading it aloud for a couple of times, you're going to laugh. Who do you think "Haywood Jabuzoff" could be?..... Customer Car Care Representative!!!

Friday, August 17, 2007

Everchanging life

Oh my life is changing everyday
Every possible way
Though my dreams,
it’s never quite as it seems
Did you ever stop to think what a great thing this everchagingness* of life is? Lets you dream big and bigger...

*Making nouns out of long adjective used to be the hobby of me and my buddy when i was a kid taking English classes in Simin Institute:)

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

The 08/08

Today is the anniversary of my arrival to US. Four years have passed. I look back at the girl who arrived in O'hare with two big suitcases and a bigger spirit to explore the brave new world. She saw new things, made new friends, tasted new tastes, learned new customs, fell in love, had her heart broken, played a fool, acted wisely, stood up, struggled, learned, cried, laughed, and still keeps looking forward.

What would my life be like had i not left my home country? It's always hard to see the counter-factuals, but one thing is for sure. This country gives you more chances to grow, the opportunities that you had to fight hard to get back home. And I'm grateful to be exposed to that.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Shahrokh Moshkin Ghalam's Dance

Dancing is my new obsession. This summer I have done no work on my thesis, and I've learnt 4 new dances! While blog-browsing today I came across this clip, and it took my breath away. See for yourself. (It's well worth the 8 minutes of your time, trust me!)

I had seen the Turkish version of Sufi Whirling before, but this is way beyond that. Unbelievably beautiful. It brought tears to my eyes watching it the first time. I never could have imagined someone could dance this beautifully to an Iranian traditional music piece. His name is Shahrokh Moshkin Ghalam, an Iranian artist living in France. Here's his website in French (For me it might as well be in Chinese! ). And for those of you lucky people who live in California or Canada, he apparently has a tour coming up.

P.S. More info here.

Friday, August 03, 2007

Lyrics and Melody

A melody is like seeing someone for the first time. The physican attraction. Sex. But then, as you get to know the person, that's the lyrics. Their story. Who they are underneath. It's the combination of the two that makes it magical.

-Quote from Music and Lyrics (2007)

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Picture frames

A particular photo, in a frame on a particular wall...
I'm gealous of a figure in a photograph.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

The most delicious movie of my life...... so far!

Oh, I don't even know where to start. The Simpsons Movie was incredible. From its first second with Fox's logo, till the very last with the Springfield national anthem (yes, they have an anthem now!). It was as delicious as a scoop of your most favorite icecream, good till the last drop:D

At first it was a bit weird to me to see the characters so BIG in their shinny colors on the screen. Well, you could say from this that i have a crappy small screen tv at home! And... they played "So happy together" which is one of my favorite songs, (and apparently The Simposons' producers' favorites too, as i had heard it in some past episodes before.

Something else: if you went to see the movie, stay for the end titles, you'll thank me later to have saved you Maggi's first word and so much more!

When I stepped out of the theater, i felt like walking on the clouds! Well, seriously, the weather was so foggy i could hardly drive back home!

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Red Light Sicko

Yesterday evening I decided to go and watch Michael Moore's Sicko. It would start at 9:45 and by the time I got ready and got into the car, it was 9:40. It's a small town, where I live and you could get to the theater in like 10 minutes. But the problem was the film was on an art theater downtown that doesn't show commercials before the movie. A luxury indeed, but not when you're running late!

In my way i needed to make a left somewhere. When i got to the intersection, the light was already yellow and there was a car waiting at the left lane to turn. Generally, I should have made a stop and waited for the next light, but you would understand that I was in a hurry:-) So, i followed that other car and turned as the light turned red. Ten feet onto the new road and i heard the loud siren. A police car turned right behind me and started to angrily blinking its lights at me. My heartbeat literally stopped for a second and then started beating like crazy. I though oh my goodness, the first time in my years to break the law and getting caught right at the moment. In constant sorrow(!) I pulled over. And guess what? The police car, just passed over me and speeded ahead:D You can't imagine my relief:-)

P.S. Sicko was good. Though this is the biased opinion of someone who likes Michael Moore. But even if you are not a big fan, go and see the movie for its absolutely charming footage of Paris and London.
Here's the NPR program on The Sicko.
P.S.2. Hey, Simposons Movie is coming out tomorrow. Isn't it exciting? :-)
P.S.3. Since yesterday I read the first 14 chapters of Harry Potter. Today I went to wikipedia and read the whole plot summery and put an end to it! Does this mean that the kid inside me has grown old?
Funny thing that i had a dream last night that someone has cut out my ear! Does everybody get these immediate fiction-fueled dreams?

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Take a sad song and make it better

...

Aside from its lyrics, I like the melody of this song alot. A couple of months ago i went to a jazz concert and they played a plain jazz version of Hey Jude. I wish I could post that here instead. It was a great performance.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Ohrwurm

I'm not that good with html coding, otherwise i would have put up a section here dedicated to my recent earworms.

Do you think it's wicked to spread around earworms? Well, they're often case-spesific and might not stick into your head:)
So here we go: Whole Wide World

P.S. that link is broken, look here for the song, the clip is alas, gone.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Home is where...

There is a new wave among some Iranian bloggers to post a picture of their childhood in their blogs. I realized that I don't have a single picture of myself as a kid with me here, darn. Days like this, you realize that this place, nomatter how comfy, is not your home.


P.S. It just started out of nowhere. With a bad sore throat. I know when i wake up tomorrow morning it will develop into a complete cold package. I'm childishly fighting the sleep now.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

In Memoriam: Beverly Sills

Watch Charlie Rose's program about Beverly Sills. She was a big American opera singer, who passed away last week. Just listen to her sing, the first 12 minutes of the video below. It's so incredibly beautiful. No man-made instrument can ever produce such a magnificant sound.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Crying rain

Water is pouring down the sky. I picture myself standing in the middle of the lawn, opening my arms and letting the raging raindrops wash over me, melting me into the ground. Just that I don't find the strength in me to get out of the balcony.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

7-7-7

An all 7 day today. What were you doing at 7 o'clock?

Thursday, July 05, 2007

The story of Sisyphus

I often find myself sympathising with Sisyphus. He was condemned by the gods to carry a stone up a mount in the underworld. A few steps to the summit where he could put his load down, the stone would fall down the hill and he would have to go back and carry it up again, and again, and again...

Monday, July 02, 2007

Love is not a victory march

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Illusion!

O' my goodness, I watched the entire movie, the illusionist, with the illusion that its main actress was Scarlet Johansen, and kept wondering howcome she looked so different in this movie!!!

Saturday, June 23, 2007

From an offline message

Life is short,
Break the rules,
Forgive quickly,
Kiss slowly,
Love truly,
Laugh uncontrollably,
And never regret anything that made you smile.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Music of the rain

Sleeping to the music of the rain,
yet one more of the life's simple pleasures.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Dreaming movies

I watched the two Kill Bills back to back on my laptop in my bed last night, then collapsed to sleep at 5 in the morning. And thus began the special features, the deleted scenes, the alternative endings, the sequal, even new characters in the plot. All in like 15 minute dream installments. I would dream a piece, wake up only to go back to sleep where another part was awaiting me. Not that pleasing, but quite an experience.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

"What'll you do when you get lonely ?"

Tonight I'm thinking, why should this particular song, among all the songs in the world, start with this verse?

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Cherries

With summer comes cherries, and we like it! Funny thing that anywhere in this country I have to be super careful not to buy anything with cherry flavor, and God knows lots of stuff are cherry flavored here! What's the irony: the cherries i like are Bing Cherries and the ones i hate are the american bright red ones which taste like cough syrup. Well the causality possibly is the other way around, cough syrups are cherry flavored!

You know what, one good thing about visiting California in June is the Bing cherry harvest season. Lots of good cherries for cheap:)
Talking about cherries listen to this song, i liked it. It's called "Black Horse & The Cherry Tree".

Friday, June 08, 2007

Summer Jazz

The magic bus ate my doughnut!
This was the title of a piece in the Jazz concert I went to tonight. I take off my hat not to the composer of the piece but to the person who came up with this name for it ;-)

Sunday, June 03, 2007

I left my heart in San Francisco



Alas, only if it wasn't that bitterly cold even in June, San Francisco was my favorite city to live in:-)

P.S. A statue of Tony Bennett's "heart" is in San Francisco's Union Square.

Friday, June 01, 2007

West Express diaries, season finale!

I want to finish these diaries before I go back home. So let's see if we can finish it in this post...
We passed four national parks: Zion, Grand Canyon, Death valley, and Yosemite. Each spectacular in its own way.

Red, red, red, Zion National Park

Zion made a big impression on me, perhaps because it was the first national park we visited, or perhaps because of the color red, I like red :) But seriously it was beautiful. Imagine a road passing along a valley surrounded by red stone mountains with green dots on them, add to the view a beautiful blue sky with some happy white cloads in it. Here are some pictures. The funny thing was that the asphalt on the road was also red!









The grand Grand Canyon
After the Zion park, we drove along the road in the middle of the Indians' land to get to the grand canyon national park. The Grand Canyon truly deserves the word "grand". Standing on the top looking at it, you can't help but wonder how Grand is the nature, and how small the man who claims himself its master.
Picking a photo to post here is a challenging task cause none of my shots could capture the grandness i'm talking about, so I'll pass.

Las Vegas
Well, what do i say about Las Vegas? You know it all! The things I didn't know about before was that you're allowed to drink in public. At nights the whole city sidewalks are like a big pub. People walk freely with bottle of beers in their hands. The other weird thing was the men distributing nude flyers in the street, and so so many of them. the funny thing is that these people also offer the pictures to the men walking hand in hand with their significant others! Would you dare taking one, if you are a man in such situation?;-)

And we drove along the Hoover dam past midnight in our way to Vegas, I regret that I didn't get a chance to go back in daylight to take a better look.

Dipping in Death Valley!
Dip was a new word to me when I first come to US. The first time the word came to my attention was with the expression "double dipping" in a Seinfeld episode. Just recently when I adopted dancing I came across with the other meaning of "dipping": when a couple dance, the dip is when the lady bends backwards, with the gentleman's hand supporting her move. Death valley national park added one more meaning to "dip". Death valley is a dessert surrounded by mountains on the far. the road passes in the middle of the sandy dessert, and so often there are inward bumps in the road. In the places the layers of sand beneath the road has gone down making dips in the road. It's like driving your car along a roller coaster kinda road. It was a fun drive!

The delish Macaroons of the Mammoth lake
I can't go on to Yosemite without mentioning this. On our way to Yosemite we stopped for the night in Mammoth lake. It's a popular sky resort, so in the off season the business was slow and the town looked empty, but no regrets, cause we discovered a very good European style bakery in town with the most decedents pastries and the absolute best macaroons i had ever had. Here's the picture of the place. If you ever got to go there, check that out and bring me some too!





And finally the Yosemite, and me!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

West Express diaries, part 2

Colorado, Or how much mountains are enough montains?:)
I liked this state. It kinda looks like Iran. Mountainous with dry weather.The road from Denver towards west very much resembles the Chaloos road in Iran which passes the Alborz mountains in the North. Only the road was cleaner and safer and there were less shaggy venders cabins alongside the road.


Another interesting thing in Colorado: this is the picture I took from the window of the giftshop in the hotel we stayed at in Denver. what do you think about the line on the t-shirt? Who is fighting the terrorism? Indians? Or are they the ones Coloradoans flighted against? ;)


Loveland, Colorado
How many of you would consider changing your trip route across States to pass by a certain icecream shop?:-) I would in general, though I couldn't do it for practical reasons this time we were badly behind our schedule for the day, and we could have missed our hotel reservation for the night. But anyway, there is a small town in Colorado called Loveland. It surprisingly has a branch of my favorite Italian gelato shop, while some big cities like Chicago for instance don't. Btw, isn't Loveland an interesting name for a town? :) So here's some more about it:

It's a town of 50,000 population, about 30 miles east of the Rocky Montains National Park. Each year hundreds of thousands of Valenites from across the world are sent to Loveland to be remailed in Feb, handstamped by volunteers with the town's postmark and a special poem that changes each year. Aren't you tempted to send a letter to Loveland this year?:-) I am. I might as well ask for a special overnight icecream delivery. In February it might get to Champaign unmelted!

Sunday, May 27, 2007

LA and Cold

Sleeping all the way when passing California road One,
Walking with a runny nose in Hollywood boulevard,
Breaking your camera while shooting the Chinese theater,
Wearing a jacket when everybody else is in bikini in Santa Monica beach,

LA was not nice to me!


P.S. I forgot to mention the terrible smell of the Hallywood blvd. Who is the mayer there? He better make some public restrooms there!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

West Express diaries, part 1

Okay, here we go, the diaries of my road trip to california. I will write about the things I found interesting along the way. The other thing is I usually like to keep my posts as short as possible in this blog, but I don't think it's gonna happen with these diaries.


We started off on the commencement day in our campus. The streets of our tini-tiny twin cities were irregularly traffic-jammed with an unusual number of cars in campus town. It took us like 20 minutes to get to the interstate, which was kind of funny cause usually it take like 5 minutes to get there. I thought to myself if that was how the trip is supposed to be, we might need an additional week to get to our destination! But luckily the road was smooth enough and we made it to Kansas City for the night stay.

Do you know which state Kansas City is in? .... Wrong answer! It's not Kansas, it's Missouri. The city is close to the border of Kansas though. There was a museum of Oz there. Bewitched by the Wicked show, I like to see it but they close on Mondays, boo! The other significant happening of this day was the hail storm that hit us in the road somewhere in Utah. I was driving with my mom next to me and the sky got cloudy. Pretty dark clouds lower in the sky and the wired thing was that in the horizon there were two dark color (same color as the clouds themselves) vertical columns coming down of the sky to the ground. From distance the view ahead of us look pretty much like a giant pi. And I was driving right into it. Spooky, nah?;)

So as we approached to one of the legs of the giant pi, the rain began. Light in the beginning, but quickly in turned into a shower. A shower so intense that i could see nothing in front of me. And when I say nothing, i mean "nothing". The wipers were on full force and still no visibility. Wooyee, it was a scary 3 minutes. I continued to drive ahead, cause i couldn't distinguish the road shoulder to pull over, and even if i would, no other car could see me stopped there and they could hit us. Now add to this situation a telephone call from a family friend :))) Okay, lets not make it more dramatic. The whole thing was just a couple of minutes and then the shower turned into a hail storm, pretty big size hails, but yet we were happy that we could see in front of us. So did you see the thing? The leg of that weird pi cloud was the hail and rain storm! So I guess somewhere in the right hand side, some other poor drivers in the road were struggling with the other leg of the storm!

I wish I had a picture of the pi storm, but you tell me, could you take time to shoot in the middle of that ciaos?;)

P.S. something else about Utah, in the walmarts there, they have the book of mormons on the racks in the register isle. No wonder, hah? :D

P.S.2 In the ladies room in a gas station in Utah, the tampon despenser, also dispensed condoms! Isn't that strange? What's it with Utah?;-)

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

I'm back!

Think for a moment and answer this question: Could you let go of your internet connection for a week? If someone asked me this question two weeks ago, I would have answered with a strong No, being aware of my addiction to my 3 email accounts, my two weblogs, and my feed reader. But things went on such that I lost my internet for a whole 9 days, and I'm still breathing!

I recall some years back I heard about a program that had American families live a week of no-TV, helping them find other family activities. My case was kinda differnt cause I was (still am) on a trip and other new things easily fill in your free time automatically. But yet it was an interesting (though irretating in the beginning) experience.

Anyway, I'll start writting about my road trip from Champaign to Santa Clara soon. We passed 6-7 states and visited 4 National parks along the way which were amazing. But for now have this picture of Simpsons family cauch. You have to imagine me sitting right next to Homer. I do have a picture like that, but I'll send it out by individula requests, hahah!

Stay cool whereever you are, cause California's weather is joyfully pleasant these days:)

Saturday, May 12, 2007

"Ingredients for life"

This was such a deep post, and i liked it. I have known the guy who wrote it as a not-too-close friend. This gives another dimension to these words, kinda separates them from the usual words of wisdom you could find everywhere; what i often find hard to relate to, beacuse the people who say them seems so inhumanely wise. I thought I'd share it with you here.


P.S. I often find people become conscience and wise when its close to their birthdays! Have you experienced this?

Friday, May 04, 2007

"Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity !

... And no one is gonna ever bring me down! "


Well, from where we were sitting, she literally was flying over our heads :-) Chicago's Elphaba is not Idina Menzel, but Dee Rosciolli. She actually did a very good job. She too could get into the Toni's I say.

Did you know that the actors in a musical wear a very tiny microphone on their foreheads? It's barely visible, but we could see each and every detail of each and everything on the stage, except for the red shoes the wicked witch of the east had on when Dorothy's house hit her!

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Luckiest day of my life !

You are not gonna believe what I'm about to say...
Just in my last post I said how much I like musicals, and before I had told you how I long to see Wicked in Chicago. And how the tickets are above my budget. Now guess what? :)


I WON the 25$ lottery for first row Wicked tickets! Yeah baby, isn't that ...well, i can't find a word for it :D

Okay, so the story from the beginning:
Yesterday my friend and I had a girls day out in Chicago. These days are the tulip festival in Michigan Avenue and I'm a sucker for colors and tulips. Also in Chicago there is shopping, and there is chelokabab and we spotted a middle-eastern party also for our late evening adventure. So we hopped in our brand new rental toyota, and headed north. We were in H&M's fitting room, when I looked at my watch and it was 5:50. The lottery happens at 6. So I grabbed my friend's ID, and made a run for it to the Borders store 2 blocks away. I put 2 entries in my name and hers, and a couple of minutes later she came just in time for the drawing. There were more than a 100 people there, and they call 10 names. Just two weeks ago when I was in chicago on a school trip I entered into the draw but didn't win. So this time I didn't have my hopes up that much, i thought we would just try our chances one more time. They started to call the names. I was looking at the cards the woman was pulling out of the witch hat. The ones she was taking out were all folded ones. I was thinking to myself that I should have folded the entry cards, when she draw a new one and read "from Urbana, Illinois, a name she can't pronounce! My friend's name. I think I screamed before she did! And started jumping up and down. Wow, what a moment. What a moment. Your heartbeat will reach to 200 in a matter of a second, and all your blood will rush to your face. I'll write more about the Wicked in another post. It was a GREAT show. But the story didn't finish here. Luck was with us all the time yesterday. Did i mention that earlier we got a free off street parking spot right next to sears towers? We did. We also could get our cover money back from that mideastern party we didn't like (well, poor grad students!). Then we got into our favorite "Howl at the moon", without cover and lines, courtesy of a guy who offered us his Chicago's W card! We got back in town by dawn. April 28th, you were such a lucky day, please come back and see us again soon!

Friday, April 27, 2007

Every story is a love story

Aida, the musical was on our campus tonight. I enjoyed it much. Boy, I'm so much into musicals! This was my third, and I still long to see one on a real theater. (The ones on campus don't count, they are simplified versions!) Anyway, you could really hear Elton John in the solos, even his voice's ups and downs. My favorite song was "Fortune favors the brave". Here's a version on youtube. And the dances were good too.

Now the funny thing about the show was that the Radames that came down to Champaign was too blond for an egyption warrior, i couldn't stop smiling even in the most tragic scenes whenever i looked at his cotten blond hair!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Celestine Prophecy

I watched this movies a friend recommended. Celestine Prophecy. It was a good one. It is based on a bestseller book by James Redfield. I'm not gonna talk about the story not to make any spoilers, but i found some similarities between its plot and that of Paolo Coelho's Alchemist. Apparently this idea of life flow and mystical coincidences is strong in Latin America.

Side note, the story takes place in Peru. The movie is filled with the amazing scenes of Peru's wild nature. Beautiful country indeed. I was doing a research on some Latin American countries last year and Peru was among the ones that gave me such hard time finding data for. Celestine prophecy, changed my perception of the word Peru!

Friday, April 20, 2007

My new top

Can one fall in love with a piece of apparel? I can:-) Today I've bought the most gourgous brown satin top one can ever imagine. It has this beautiful pleeted v-neck colar. It's tight around the waist and the shoulders are made just to fit mine. And it's sleeves, oh my goodness, the 3/4 beautiful puffy ones. Recall the 19th century men's puffy sleeves, this is twice as pretty. If you have read "Anne of Green Gables" you'd understand when i say right now I feel like Anne when she got her puffy sleeves dress.

And you guys out there, don't you dare thinking what a vein vanity, cause you can't imagine what you're missing!

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Just like that

It could have been me, teaching an early morning class, being shut in face by a mad man carrying a gun, raging into my classroom. I could criticize the law that legalizes firearms in US, but I don't feel like arguing right now. Today's incident in Virginia Tech campus awoke some old feeling in me. What I thoughts I had overcame for quite some years now. Feeling insecure. Knowing that your life or your loved ones' life could come to an end at any second. The insecurity that roots from growing up as a kid in mid 80's under the terror of Iraqis bombardments of Iranian cities.

AP photo : As light fades behind Norris Hall where much of the shootings took place, Virginia Tech students gather in front of the War Memorial Chapel to mourn their fellow students.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

It's not all your attitude

What makes a day happy or sad? I believe it's mainly your attitude. Most of the times, if you we wake up in the morning with a happy spirit, the day turns to be smiling back at you as well. But not always. Some days seems destined to be "sad" no matter how happy you started them.

It was a shinny day today, the weather had warmed up a bit, and I was almost recovered from my cold. Then I went to campus and BAM the first news, our 5 month pregnant secretary has lost her baby. BAM, a friend's folks are denied a US visa to come visit their kid. BAM, another friend has lost an uncle back home without getting a chance to say goodbye to him.

Turned out to be not a smiling day after all.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Meltyblend

Today I went to a student's home to proctor an exam. The poor girl has fractured her spine while ice-skating. She has to be immobile in a cast for 6 months. Just imagine they force you to lie in bed wearing a plastic cast and stare into the ceiling for 6 hours, let alone months; unbearable. She can move her limbs, so she had a special table with some hangers that would fix the paper up above her face so that she can write the answers to the test. Yet she was in good spirit and was trying to graduate in May.

It's just a matter of seconds to have an accident, and it could happen to anybody. The next time that I begin feeling low, I'm gonna remember today and remind myself that I'm blessed with many many good things that I often take for granted.


P.S.1. Her mother had come from Taiwan to take care of her, so she was in good hands.
P.S.2. The mother kept serving me tea and fruits and goodies. It seems Taiwanese have the same hospitality codes as Iranians.
P.S.3. (back to the title) She offered me such a magnificent chocolate. It is a Japanese Chocolate called Meltyblend. Truly good. A soft bitter-sweet melty cube chocolate covered in cocoa dust. Yummmy. I totally recommend it. If you found a store that carries it, let me know too!

Friday, March 30, 2007

Smile, it's raining !

It's raining today. Sometimes in nice sunny days, the buses that run in the streets of our town here have a sign on : "Smile, it's sunny". It's interesting, the excitement people feel in a sunny day here, we would get from a rainy day back home.

I remember the radio used to play songs and read poetry's about rain when it began to shower in Tehran. In my old dry polluted city, rain meant a lot. A short moment of relief for the poor carbon covered Plane trees, some water for the dried out grass in parks and gardens, and above all fresher air to breathe for people, even if for a short while. As for me, i so much liked looking at the city when wet. It was like "color" was back to the streets from beneath the gray layer of dust.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Eidetoon Mobarak



How wise our forefathers were to set our New year's day on the start of the Spring. There is something about Spring. You see how right in front of your eyes the nature renovates itself with such joy that's hard to put into words. A colorful celebration of a new era.

This New Year's day, I'm in Washington city. The Magnolia trees are in flower. The gorgeous white and pink flower buds ready for a magnificent bloom. Amazed by their beauty, I make a wish. That the new year, does to me and to you, what it does to the nature in the bloom of a new Spring.

Happy New Year.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Packing

Packing. It is one of the things I very much dislike. I like to travel. I like airports and plane rides. I like the roads and to drive, I like staying in hotels, ... I even don't mind the delays or hassles often involved with travelling, the only part of it I hate is packing my suitcases. It's such a classic problem, limited resources (i.e. luggage space) and insatiable wants (what you want to take with you).
Or hold on, perhaps it's this: having to make several choices between the stuff you want to carry with you in a short span of time. And decision-making is an energy-consuming process.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Creepy!

Following on my Sabzeh post earlier, this year I had made more wheat spouts than I needed for sabzeh. So I put half of it in a container in the fridge to eat later. Today I took it out to put some on my salad, and guess what? The spouts had kept growing in the fridge, they had developed those green stems. Creepy, it was like eating something alive

Saturday, March 10, 2007

The movie 300

There are two sides to any story. Often there are two very different narrations depending on which side the storyteller is standing by. This is more pronounced when you look back at the events in the history, as there are fewer unaffiliated narrators. Ancient civilizations, Persians, Greeks, Romans,... had lots of conflicts. Depending on who's telling the story the villains change to heroes and heroes to villains. It's very difficult to remain neutral in here.

Now, I as a Persian, with an obvious biased opinion, find the movies 300 a story told extremely biased. A group of Persian bloggers have started an attempt to provide an insight from another point of view to the ancient Persia. I support their effort. 300 the movie

Thursday, March 08, 2007

My goofy story of the day!

This afternoon, when I got to my office I found my PC was dead:-( It actually would come up and show the login window and then froze in there, no ctrl-alt-del, no mouse movement, no nothing. So I restarted the thing a couple of times, and it didn't help. I called the office, they said that I had to fill up a computer maintenance request form ONLINE! Isn't that funny?

Add to this situation, a busy busy office hour, cause my kids have their midterm on Friday. Anyways, I started filling up the form on my officemates' machine, but he just then showed up to print out something, and when he left, i was logged out of the system, pooh! Who needs a secure system for maintenance request anyway? So long story short, I sent the request. There they said it might take 1-2 days if it is not a case of emergency. I was debating with my conscience to declare it an emergency (which wasn't) or not, and at last like an angel decided not to slip to the dark side of the force, yet!

An hour later, I had 4 students over, and I was going over a proof on the small white broad we have in office. I should mention that our office is a tini-tiny room, with 3 desks in it. So having 5 people in the room is actually a full house, the 6th person has to stand in the hall! Then the computer guy came in. He could barely fit in the room anyway, but add to the fact that he was a pretty big guy too. He actually offered to come back in a less crowded time, but I was so excited that he was there that soon that I said i wouldn't mind him fixing it right then. Perhaps the students would mind, but hey, TAs rule!

So, could you guess the ending by now?
...
The problem was both keyboard and mouse plugs were loose!

Monday, March 05, 2007

Norouz is coming


Yesterday I went to the whole food store and got some wheat to grow for my haft-seen. In the picture you see my last year's lentis Sabzeh. This year I'm growing wheat for a change:-)
The New Year spirit is in the air.

P.S. How to grow Sabzeh
-Soak the wheat in water for 24 hours
-Wrap it in a wet cloth for 2-3 days. Make sure that the wheat and the cloth is damp at all time, but there is no excess water in the bowl.
-tranfer the young sprouts to the plate you want your sabze in, and give them sunshine and water and sing to them!!!

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Ellen

I'd say, Ellen DeGeneres did a nice job hosting the Oscars.
See the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfeZibn3vmU&NR

She cries in the studio after seeing the comments those celebrities made about her before the show. It is one of the most superb feeling anyone could ever feel. That you see people truly believe in you, no matter what.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Red, Fraternity, and Compassion



Seeing the good in people...
Compassion will pay off, even in a weird, serendipity like way.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Blue, Liberty, and Pain


The thing is
in a fight with pain
you're never the winner,
until you gave in.