Why? How? (But Mostly Why.)

 Why is Heidi Montag following me on twitter?

Vegetarian Hormone Soup

It is quite easy to feel put-upon when you're the lone vegetarian in a house of carnivores. One begins to feel proprietary towards the fruits and veggies. "Keep your hands off my spinach, you already have chicken curry!" I would say, to which my brother, not unreasonably, would usually reply, "Just because you're a vegetarian doesn't mean you're the only person who gets to eat plant matter!" It was a moot point, because my mother is in the habit of cooking quantities that would feed a platoon of hungry rugby players, so usually we'd grumble a bit more, formulate some choice insults and mutter them sotto voce in case either parent was in hearing range, and then forget all about the whole thing five minutes later. 

Then one month, PMT hits me like a hurricane. Dinnertime: I am looking forward to delicious methi chapatis with mango pickle, I open the fridge and lo and behold, the chapatis, they are gone. My brother strolls by, casually, munching on something. I turn a gimlet eye upon him and yes, rolled up in his hand is a methi chapati. Quite steadily, I ask, "Where are the rest of the chapatis?" He swallows; says, "Oh, I ate them. Did you want some?"

At this point, in my head, there was all that really lame lightning-strike imagery you see in cheesier hindi films at moments of high drama. "You ate them ALL!" I roared, aghast. "WHAT ABOUT ME? I'M THE VEGETARIAN HERE!"  I was, at that moment, the spirit of capslock made flesh, but my brother remained unfazed by all the majuscule melodrama. "Che," he said, in between bites, "you do not have the exclusive right to eat vegetarian stuff just because you're a vegetarian."

It was too much. I burst out sobbing. "YOU PEOPLE HATE ME!" I railed, as my very confused parents came in, "YOU DON'T CARE IF I STARVE TO DEATH!" I flounced to my room, utterly bereft, depressed and lachrymose, there to die a (very, very, very!) slow death from starvation.

Except, half-an-hour later, I wasn't bereft, depressed and lachrymose; I was hungry and perplexed. Had I really thrown a fit over chapatis? I went downstairs to check; three pairs of eyes examined me. "Have you stopped your nonsense now?" asked my mother. 

"Um, yeah." 

"Good. Then go eat. There's dal and brinjal on the stove for you."

Shelob Kutty

Me: AAAAAAIEEEEEEEEE!!!
Dad: What? What?
Me: *point and wibble*
Dad: Oh, please. It's probably more scared of you than you are of it.
Me: I really doubt that. It's probably the runt of the litter and Papa Spider and Mama Spider and all its one hundred siblings are probably waiting around the counter to EAT US. Have you learned nothing from Hollywood?
Dad: ...

Striker Party on Google Wave and Everyone's Invited (While Invites Last)

This should be fun: Beth and other assorted Bollywood bloggers and fans are organizing a Striker watchalong this Sunday 7th January at 1 pm EST (10 pm local UAE time) on Google Wave. The film is being released worldwide on Youtube at the same time as it hits cinemas in India - for free in most places, though US viewers will have to shell out a not unreasonable $5. For more info on this event, you can follow #strikerwatchalong on twitter; if you want invites to Google Wave, leave a message with your e-mail address.

Democracy For All (Irony Not Included)

"In this respect, the United States represents the form toward which capitalist democracy is tending; related tendencies include the progressive elimination of unions and other popular organizations that interfere with private power, an electoral system that is increasingly stage-managed as a public relations exercise, avoidance of welfare measures such as national health insurance that also impinge on the prerogatives of the privileged, and so on. From this perspective, it is reasonable for Cyrus Vance and Henry Kissinger to describe the United States as "a model democracy," democracy being understood as a system of business control of political as well as other major institutions.

Other Western democracies are generally a few steps behind in these respects. Most have not yet achieved the U.S. system of one political party, with two factions controlled by shifting segments of the business community."

Chomsky, Noam. "Containing the Enemy." The Essential Chomsky. Ed. Anthony Arnove. London: The Bodley Head, 2008. 257-58. Print.

[More on the US Healthcare Debacle here and here.]