binge

I'm on maternity leave until November 20. Every day, I feed, change and snuggle the baby, let him look deep into my soul and hope he approves of what he sees there, then I look at the clock and realize it's 4 pm and I didn't get anything on my dream list accomplished.

Except.

The television. Good gravy, do I love television. And FaceBook. And podcasts. All things I can (mostly) do while letting a 10-week old evaluate the contents of my character.

Here is what I have been bingewatching since being on light-duty/bedrest and maternity leave, in reverse order:

• The Time In Between (El Tiempo Entre Costuras)
• Blackish
• Fresh Off the Boat
• The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
• The Newsroom
• The West Wing
• The Great British Baking Show
• The Good Place
• Sherlock
• The Crown
• Friends from College (I don't know if it's because these people are my age, but I HATED this one, even though I watched all of it.)
• The Get Down
• Orange Is the New Black
• Master of None
• Bloodline (I gave up on season 2 because it was just too slow and brooding.)
• Dear White People
• Anne with an E
• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Jon and I are snooty when it comes to tv, but we both watch stuff we wouldn't recommend to others. Sometimes I slog through stuff that I don't necessarily love just to see how it ends (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Jon is devoted to his "stories," which are just every single serialized superhero show out there.

In my defense, please see the third paragraph of this post. He's only going to let me snuggle him and let me watch what *I* want to watch for an extremely limited time. 

cylon blanket

Handmade stuff has always had a very special place in my heart. Things that my nani or mom made for me are among my prized possessions. So it makes me sad that I haven't really made anything for my daughter (save for one knit dress I had started for my goddaughter four years ago and finally finished before Ro was born. She is already too big for it).

My mom goes to more baby showers than anyone else I know, so I liked to make blankets while I watched tv so she doesn't have to knit them all herself. She had been putting aside blankets for my kids since I turned 25 because "she might be blind/dead/unable to move her hands by the time I gave her any grandchildren."

This is one I made while Jon and and I bingewatched Battlestar Galactica in 2009. 

I had no idea she was also saving a few that I made for my kids. At my baby shower, she gave me two large wicker baskets: One full of new or beloved stuffed animals from my childhood, and the other bursting with eight rolled-up baby blankets. I had made three. It means so much that she thought far enough in advance to save things for my child from me, too.

February 10. Don't worry, she doesn't sleep with a blanket (or in this Rock 'n' Play) now that she discovered how to roll over.

It didn't even occur to me that our own child might one day be holding onto what I made while we were watching Starbuck and Boomer. 

Bonus post: Why I will never learn to like baseball

Jon is downstairs screaming his head off at the Dodgers. The other night when they lost, he lost his voice and did not sleep all night. I'm just waiting for the neighbors to call the cops one of these days--they probably think someone is getting beaten here, not just his favorite team on television.

like crazy

Yesterday I should have been working. But instead, to quote my husband, I was "relaxing." Except now I'm in a frenzy because I didn't work, so whatever relaxation benefits I got from yesterday have been taken down in a belly-to-belly suplex by the paranoia about what all I have to get done for work by 11/30 and how I wasted a full day yesterday lying around the house watching television.

Oh television, you are my evilest vice.

One of the things we watched yesterday was this independent film, with Anton Yelchin and some girl from the U.K. that I swear I have seen before, called Like Crazy. SPOILERS AHEAD:

To sum up, this movie is about two people who love spending time together, but don't care about Visa laws and end up sort of sad and regretful but stuck together because all they went through and all they hurt in order to be together even though they really didn't think things through and both are just a little bit selfish. I thought the girl was selfish and Jon thought the boy was stupid for not just moving his damn independent furniture business to the U.K. He kept saying, "Sack up and move, you idiot!" to the tv.

Madelyn had recommended it as a really good movie, because it made you feel something.

I spent the rest of the day trying to sit as close to Jon as possible. I probably hugged him more yesterday than I had in the last week. The long-distance scenes were sad.

Jon spent the rest of the day angry. He hates films in which the character very clearly doesn't do what the right thing to do is (tell the truth, just break up with the girl already or move to be with the one he loves.) and spends the rest of the movie suffering for apparently no good reason. Additionally, he ABHORS movies in which the main character is with a perfectly nice and lovely person and then just happens to meet *the one* and dumps that perfectly nice person.

So we had to watch the rest of Season 3 Sons of Anarchy to get him back in good spirits. Then poof, the day was over.


yippie-kai-yay, mf
In which I finally make the time to watch Die Hard.

what we miss

"After this wedding, can we watch 'Friends' from the beginning?"

"We can watch whatever you want."

"Really?!!"

"As long as it's tv."

all i can say is that he'd better be just as devoted to me

My fiance doesn't drink. He's never done drugs. He doesn't look for a thrill in gambling. And when we pull up to a red light next to a car in which someone is smoking, we have to roll up the windows because he gets a headache. But everyone has a vice. And Jon's has to do with sports.

This evening we went to a very nice restaurant in Bucktown, a gelateria and a Wrigleyville bar, dressed pretty respectably. I even had on a smidge of makeup. Jon had a full beard. On exactly HALF of his face. For that, I blame the Los Angeles Lakers.

Let's start at the beginning.

I grew up in a pretty typical Indian family. Except for the fact that we all gathered in the family room for football every NFL Sunday even though roughly half of us could not care less about the score. My brother would run around in front of the tv wearing t-shirts he'd marked up with a Sharpie to replicate his favorite players' jerseys, throwing a nerf football to himself and calling the play-by-play in an increasingly higher-pitched voice. When Jim McMahon hurt his shoulder, my brother would suddenly need to have his shoulder wrapped with an Ace Bandage. In fact, one time when he was four he snuck upstairs and called our pediatrician in tears to ask him to fix a quarterback's injuries. When his team was close to playoff elimination, he'd scoot all the way up to the screen, drop to his knees and start praying. His devotion was undying. And to be honest, it was sort of cute. But we're talking every single weekend. A few years later, just in time for the three-peats, he got really into basketball without losing any of his football fervor. And then he added baseball to the mix. At that point I was safely away at college, far from the madness.

And yet somehow, among all the men in the entire United States and abroad, I managed to procure for myself the one that is just as insane as my brother. In September Jon is going to marry me, but he and sports are celebrating their 30-something-th anniversary.

Generally, this is all right by me. I'm happy to sit on the couch with my sports-obsessed loved ones as long as there's something else I can do. Perhaps the reason I have such an affinity for knitting is because that is what my mother did on those neverending Sunday afternoons of timeouts and scrimmages. You're "spending time with them" while they generally just scream at the television; you might as well make some headway on that baby blanket for your friend. Don't get me wrong, I actually like sports (basketball especially). It's just when Major League Baseball season overlaps with National Football League season, which overlaps with National Basketball Association season (please don't let him get into college football or else there goes Saturdays), there is no such thing as an offseason. Sometimes a girl just needs a breather.

Things have been tense around here for the last week. While the Los Angeles Lakers have had their fair share of Championships, they weren't expected to sail right into the final round this year. And that was making my number-one L.A. fan very nervous. So nervous, in fact, that he vowed to the whole world (Okay, just on Facebook) that he was going to shave off the right side of his beard if the Lakers didn't pull out a victory on Friday night.

I'm sure you know what happened. As the yelling and gnashing of teeth grew louder and stronger, I steeled myself for the inevitable grumpy mood that would linger for at least a week, making food not taste as good, television not as funny and smiles nowhere to be seen--and nothing I do will fix it. I posted my own lament on Facebook about how the Lakers essentially ruined my weekend. People think that's an exaggeration, but when one of his teams doesn't perform up to par, there truly is a palpable dampening in the zest for life around these parts. It's kind of a downer.

Suddenly, the buzzing of the electric razor started up in the bathroom. Initially I thought okay, so he will Victor/Victoria the beard, take a picture, post it and then shave the rest. Right? Nope.

But it actually didn't bother me. What, were people going to stare? Don't they already because we're sort of an odd couple? Nothing new there. We went about our evening and the next day. My mom didn't even notice right away. All he had to say was that he'd lost a bet. He didn't mention that it was with himself. We met up with his sister M and her husband in the city, going to three separate places. Nobody said a thing. I didn't even see anyone notice. He wanted to prove that he doesn't go back on his word, so he had a picture of us taken in the restaurant (where we were sitting at one long community table, by the way) and posted it on the Internet for all to see. And I'm there, smiling right next to him. No big deal.

Except now I can't help but feel like it was sort of big. I'll never know for sure, but I wonder if he was gauging my reaction to being out and about with him looking a tiny bit ridiculous. To see if I'd look around sheepishly or make him shave before leaving the house. Sort of a test.

I hope I passed.

just get to the president already, guys

" 'Where were YOU when you heard Osama bin Laden was dead?' "

"Seriously. These guys are so dramatic. Especially that guy with Wolf Blitzer."

"And they're repeating themselves so much, too! If I have to hear 'THIS IS SUCH A HISTORIC MOMENT AROUND THE WORLD' again within the next thirty seconds..."

"Too bad it's Sunday or we could do a drinking game."

on the telephone

Often when my brother calls me, he doesn't really talk. He will ask what I'm doing and then has nothing to add. I'll follow up with 14 questions, to which he will have essentially the same answer: "Not much." Then I will start telling random stories, wondering if he is watching TV instead of listening. Sometimes I think he's been so conditioned to my rambling all these years that the white noise of it is sometimes soothing. Then I tire of hearing myself speak and let him go.

A few months ago, he called while we were watching the Dexter finale. If any of you have seen the show, you know that a WHOLE LOT OF CRAZY always happens, especially during the last episode. I let the call go to voicemail to call him back after I had calmed down (I'm always terrified on behalf of the hero). I figured that because my brother was in Houston for work, he must have scored tickets to the Rockets and was calling to tell me.

When I called back, I found out that my brother was in the Emergency Room. Remember that spurting blood thing he had going on with his leg? He already had surgery to fix it, but the problem had re-started at the ankle. It started spewing after he took a shower, and thankfully a coworker staying at the same hotel brought him to the hospital.

At this point, I started losing it. What kind of horrible person chooses to watch TV over answering the phone when her baby brother is bleeding profusely in some strange hospital a thousand miles away? Jon was trying to convince me that I am not a horrible person, but it still felt like it. I tried to be calm, because if I freaked out audibly, my brother would regret even telling me about it. He forbade me from telling my parents under the threat that he will never let me know what's happening again, and assured that he was fine. He was going to make an appointment with the doctor who did his other vein surgery when he got back to Mobile.

My brother's new phone thing is when I ask him a question he claims a) he's already told me the answer, b) I never pay attention/remember/listen c) that he won't repeat himself. And then he says I'm just like dad (no offense, dad, you're great). No one on Earth can get under my skin as much as this boy. And he takes sadistic pleasure in driving me batty.

So I never could determine if he had met with the surgeon again or if there was an upcoming procedure. He didn't want to tell mom, and he kept saying he'd already answered that question. I fired back that he's certainly not important enough that people take notes every time he speaks, and anyone who thinks so is on drugs. He said he'd tell mom I think she's on drugs and hung up.

Then he told mom that he was having ankle-vein surgery. The next day. And when she found out I had known about this whole situation, she was upset. For obvious reasons.

I think part of the reason my brother moved so far away is because my parents and I are consistently hovering over his eating, sleeping, partying and medicine-taking habits. It's selfish, really. We have grown fond of the little brat and would like to have him around for another 50 years or so. But my brother was taught at a very young age to live in the moment. If he wants to go to a bar and do shots with his buddies, that's what he's going to do, no matter how many cardiologists recommend against it. It makes my parents absolutely crazy with worry. But that stubborn part of his personality is likely what has helped him stay alive.

My mom got over her anger. We'd rather someone know what's going on with the kid than all three of us to be in the dark. But we spent the day of his procedure feeling a little out of sorts. We weren't there. We didn't know what has happening, hell, we didn't even understand exactly what they were doing to him. It's a blessing his roommate took the day off work to take him home and watch over him. That Mark is a good guy.


Shortly after he woke up and was able to keep graham crackers down, the phone calls began. The only upside to surgeries is the absolute hilarity of talking to my brother when he is on powerful drugs. The usual phone habits are out the window, and he's downright chatty. Unfortunately, he's also saying all kinds of brazen and ridiculous things, such as proclaiming to be able to take down a male nurse five times his size in a fistfight, or demanding an explanation from his heart surgeon as to why such a rich doctor drives a Ford Taurus. Who knows what he had said to the hospital staff this time. He called me at work about a dozen times. Later, I relayed a few tidbits of what he had been saying, and the response was, "Oh no. OH NO." It wasn't too embarrassing, but it was entertaining. But it's nice to know that--even while he was high as a kite and not making a lot of sense--he still wanted to talk to me.

can't get you out of my head

I am persistently troubled with things being stuck in my head. But worst, by far, are the songs. In fact, at my first job, a coworker and I had a contest over which of us could get a song stuck in the other's head without actually singing it. And as much as I dominated that game, it got a little close at times.

I heard somewhere that if you have a song stuck in your head, doing a little quick mental math can boot it right out. And that probably works, but I have such little patience for arithmetic that I often give up on it before I get too far. So said annoying song remains intact.

But today I was listening to a radio interview with Amy Sedaris, who is famous for her books, her comedy, her sibling, David and her show with Stephen Colbert--Strangers With Candy. She said that Colbert once told her that the best way to get a song out of your head is to think of that old SpeedStick deodorant brand-recognition jingle-ender, "By Mennen!"

They had so many commercials back in the day:


For the ladies:


And even En Espanol:


It really works!

once you have the guy, the rest is just gravy, right?

Dude, there are SO MANY WEDDING SHOWS on television. It may just be because I'm thinking about it more as we dip our toes into planning this thing, but everywhere you turn, there is someone talking about getting some nuptials together. Tonight we happened to catch this VH1 show called My Big Friggin' Wedding. It's, well, very Jersey Shore-ish. And a little scary.


I've been spending a lot of time just looking around. I realize that while I never fantasized about the details of my wedding, I knew I wanted to be doing Indian Stuff and having it outside. I guess that's a start, but it also leaves a lot up to the imagination. And there is SO much to look at on the World Wide Web; it is as Jon says, a great yet very terrible thing. What's worst, those of you who have spent more than 15 minutes with me know that I am what they call The Opposite of The Decider.

The saving grace is that there are some very smart, talented and capable people around who are willing to help. I don't know what I'd do without them.

"till i was told it was built in 1992"

Conan O'Brien has an awesome American Express Commercial, shot apparently in Jaipur. Here's the "making of" video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlzUdZWetK8


Here's the extended cut:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIZCtDJtFPw


Conan could stand to work on his Hindi, but he's probably a little busy.

move over snuggie?

Apparently this Norwegian onepiece sweatsuit is all the rage. I rather enjoyed the "extreme sleepover" promo photos at cushzilla.com. (Via www.gofugyourself.celebuzz.com). I would totally show you some of the pics, but I can't' figure out how.

In other news, we downloaded the Netflix Streaming to the actual Wii so now I won't have any way of knowing when that someone has been playing Guitar Hero instead of going to sleep early anymore because I'll never have to change the disc.

My apologies for this lackluster post. But it'll seem better if you check out those ridiculous photos on cushzilla.com.

apparently one CAN live without television...sort of

As you've seen before, we've decided to downgrade our television-viewing opportunities (no cable/dish). The only channel we get clearly without acrobatics is Fox. And we always happen to turn it on during shows I don't particularly care for, such as the Family Guy spinoff about Cleveland.

But with my long-held devotion to Netflix and a not-dialup Internet connection--on top of the fact that we're both working so much that we barely have time to sit down on the couch--I don't even miss it.

Isn't that shocking? ME, not miss tv?!? I know.

So I've taken to getting the bulk of my daily television allowance by walking through patient waiting areas (I could dedicate a whole other post to how all the tvs in the various departments tend to be tuned to the same things at the same times: Access Hollywood, Ellen, Dancing with the Stars, The Biggest Loser and local news). And I also watch in the department breakroom.

The tv in the breakroom is hooked into the hospital-wide system, which has sort of an On Demandlike option for movies. So over the last few months I've seen 30-minute snippets of dozens of films that I will inevitably add to my Netflix queue just to see the endings. This is awesome because a) the queue is getting robust again, and b) I can sort of pre-screen the films.

The downside?


The On Demandlike program is completely controlled by the patients. As you can see, if some guy in the room that supplies our tv feed decides he needs to pee during The Blind Side, he can pause it. And I eat my dal and rice, patiently hoping he comes back. The worst is watching them decide. I see them flipping back and forth and back and forth andbackandforthandbackandforth. I usually eat at 4:30, often by myself, and wonder if people can hear me screaming at the television for that patient to just choose "Up" already because time is ticking on my lunch hour.

Why don't I just give up and watch regular tv, with cable? Because even watching some patient play solitaire is more appealing to me than having to sit through commercials.

human conductor

Things are getting somewhat settled--albeit VERY SLOWLY--in the new apartment, but one thing that's hard to get used to is that the only channel we can get in here without some serious acrobatics is Fox* (which wouldn't be so bad if my work schedule didn't overlap with So You Think You Can Dance. Don't tell me what's happening; I'm hoping to catch a marathon of the current season soon).

But the World Cup is An Event, so we pulled out the big guns. Jon had made this very fancy antenna when we were in the condo, and as you can see we are able to get ABC. But only if we hold it juuust so.

Excuse the hair. I didn't want to miss anything by trying to fix it after I jumped out of the shower.

I had to hold the antenna at a different place than Jon did (of course we took turns); who knows what conducting a signal with your torso for a few hours does to your body.

What I lacked in jumping up and down, I made up for in yelling. My dad would have been proud, if he weren't busy jumping up and down and yelling in his own living room.**

The neck pain was totally worth seeing Espana win it all. Sorry, Ale, your guys played a hell of a tournament, but after the U.S. and India, I always root for Spain.





*No cable or dish--we're trying to save for a wedding.
**We were worried about missing something if we drove over to my parents' house to see the extra time.

don't leave your facebook unattended when there's an 11-year-old around

You know how sometimes people tell you a charming anecdote and when they realize you're just not feeling it they say something like "You had to be there"? Well, you may have had to have been there for this little story, which I have shamelessly ripped off from cc, but I never would do so if she had her own blog. I've been laughing about it all week.

Cc's husband, p, is a philosophy professor. He's very scholarly and has studied the greats in their native languages (we're talking French, German, Italian and probably other ones I don't even know about). Dude is smart. He goes to the opera (perhaps not by choice, but he still goes). And he can converse on a vast variety of topics--including "professional" wrestling, as orchestrated by the WWE.

What keeps p (and cc for that matter) so informed on wrestling is that their son, b, is 11 and loves little else more than seeing grown men throwing themselves at each other in a ring. Last year b's favorite performer was Rey Mysterio and apparently he's also a big fan of Jeff Hardy (take a second and click on that last link). Who can blame him? WWE storylines put soap operas like General Hospital to shame. I know, because my brother was an avid fan of old-school characters like Hulk Hogan, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, The Ultimate Warrior and many others I will not name lest I get branded as a fan myself.

So p has a facebook page, which he primarily uses to keep in touch with all his jetsetting intellectual pals from around the globe; I'm willing to bet they're not all as down to earth or as in touch with pop culture as p is. Unfortunately for him, he left his facebook account open one day and came back to a string of mocking messages from his colleagues: b had gone in, become a "fan" of Jeff Hardy and written "I LOVE YOU JEFF HARDY!" on the wrestler's facebook page. Except to Jeff Hardy and the rest of the facebook community, it looks like that message was posted by a 30-something philosophy professor.

When I have a lull in my day and think about how p must have reacted to this turn of events, it makes me snicker out loud. Thanks, b! But maybe it's not as funny to everyone else. I guess you had to be there.

home is where i'm at

Whenever I'm living outside my parents' home, I have a confusion about what to call it. If I tell my mom I'm coming to her house, she snaps Oh, so all of a sudden this isn't your home? And then when I call the condo "The Condo," H is like so this isn't your home? So I've decided that wherever I'm headed is Home, like the concept behind Air Force One.

The first week at the hospital is over. I was so exhausted that I spent the majority of my time back at the condo sleeping, which I'm sure was awesome for H, whom I barely got any time to talk to all week. We're heading to my parents' house today for barbecue and maybe even some baking, but I didn't roll out of bed until noon so my mother is annoyed. She wanted us to come over early. H wants us to stay here longer so he could spend time with me when my eyes are actually open. I just wanted to clear out 600-some unread posts on my google reader (I've now got it down to 11, thankyouverymuch).

One thing I did catch with my eyes open was the pilot of Glee. Then we went back and watched the Director's Cut version (which explains weird comments like "you changed out of your uniform?" when there weren't any), and I better understood the premise. Cc told me that the show would make me feel happy inside, and darn tootin, she was right. I even spotted Lauren from So You Think You Can Dance in the "Rehab" number. I think this show is going to be very entertaining. And sad as it sounds, few things make me feel happy inside like really well-done television.

at the very least, i'd been training for it since i learned to change the channel

I'm sure no one is keeping track, but it's been more than a month since my last post. What can I say? My dvr, Netflix queue and TCM/AMC are in need of constant attention. I used to feel guilty about all the tv I watch until a friend argued that I'm just soaking up all of that information and I will surely do something with it...someday.

Well maybe that day has come and gone. Last week, one of those marketing focus-group research companies called me in to sit on a panel on REALITY TELEVISION. I got to discuss tv, and at the end of the night somebody handed me an envelope full of cash.

It was as though I'd found my calling! How I would love to make a salary (with benefits!) yeah-ing or nay-ing tv proposals. I explained why a show about community theater would work best when focused on the lovable scamps from Nebraska instead of the trying-too-hard 15-minuters from Connecticut. With examples, of course: I managed to reference not one but SEVEN other reality-television gimmicks in the course of the fifteen minutes I spoke. And there was even a 12 Angry Men moment during which I convinced half the table that a particular idea would be a flop because it had even less sincerity than Rock of Love. I'm pretty sure I was born to do this.

Sad as that sounds, I've had a renewed sense of purpose all week and have been scrambling to harness it into something tangible. And I'm going to start just as soon as I get caught up on The Colbert Report.

Cadiz and H, you are the last team to arrive. I'm sorry to tell you that you have both been eliminated from the Race

Way back in March, Angel07 celebrated her birthday in style--Amazing Race style. She and her man, Mark, did a fantastic job thinking up challenges and putting together a very fun day for all of us.

You long-term readers know how much I love CBS's The Amazing Race. In fact there has been much talk in the comments over the years about getting teams together and how well we'd all do against one another. H and I were so convinced we'd be a perfect team that we even filmed and submitted an application video a few years ago. However when we watch it now, it's easy to see why we never got a call. Regardless, he's great with directions and I'm an excellent driver (I know everyone says that, but my dad's training and years of weaving through traffic at high speed combined with constantly having to turn around has made me quite effective under pressure).

That gorgeous afternoon--60 degrees in Mid-March!--we got to Mark's house about 30 seconds before the final check-in time. Phew! However one half of the Wonder Twins (dressed in matching green-and-white stripedy shirts and black winter vests) kept us waiting anyway; apparently there are a few exits off the highway with the same name and she had taken the wrong one.

We received a RACE INFO packet containing maps, instructions that explained the CLUES, ROAD BLOCKS (for one team member) and DETOURS (for both team members), and a pen.

The race took place in a suburban area with which H and I had zero familiarity. Other teams knew it well, but we were confident we'd win handily anyway. We rarely miss an episode of the show and know all the pitfalls. This may have worked against us.

Mark gathered us all in his driveway and gave us the first clue which led to the big mailbox in the center of the cul-de-sac. Everybody took off running for that red-and-yellow envelope.

H and I sprinted toward the car, where we got in and opened the clue: "Make your way on FOOT..."

It was a number-to-letter puzzle. Other racers just ran to the park to sit down and figure it out, but H and I were already behind, so we solved it while we ran. Splitting the paper and doing it together was a pretty quick method.


Mark was at the first location, a children's park with picnic tables, a jungle gym and some really confused kids. We whispered the solution in Mark's ear. He gave us our next clue:

All of the envelopes, boxes and clues were clearly marked with TAR colors. These guys were not playing around.

We were the second team to get this 60-piece kids' puzzle. Apparently in our haste, we didn't see the pile of scotch tape dispensers on the other table. Only after we heard other teams using it did we get some, which really helped. But that put us in second-to-last place. On the back of the completed puzzle was the next clue:

We ran back to the car. I am much more out of shape than I thought; H got to the car while I caught my breath and picked me up on our way to Wendy's, where we got our first DETOUR, "Eat it or Play it."

In "Eat it" each team member had to gulp down a small Wendy's Frosty. That was out because H has lactose issues. "Play it" was a simplified game of war, conducted by A07 and the Kind Dentist. We got very lucky and won right away, putting ourselves ahead of several teams who were already there. A07 handed us the next clue:

We took off to the train station. The thing that sucks about scavenger hunts and the like is that the first team to get there wastes a bunch of time determining the exact location while subsequent teams just look for the cars and follow.

No matter, I had Eagle Eye H with me, who found a plastic Easter egg right away.

Luckily ours had keys in it; decoy eggs contained paper clips.

The next clue was in an out-of-the-way-place. Next to the station was the stadium for a local minor-league baseball team. There were several lots, which were pretty much empty, but spot #15 was off to the side. We had learned our lesson about showing other people the way and parked out of sight. There was a yellow-and-red box under a spruce tree that contained the next clue, a ROADBLOCK, and Mark was chilling on a lawn chair behind the tree.

H has definitely seen more American movies than I have, so he did the challenge. But they were tricky questions, such as "Which singer/songwriter composed the music for Princess Bride and Wag the Dog?" another neither of us can remember, and the one H got correct, "Name the actors who played the aliens in Earth Girls Are Easy," even though he hasn't seen the film. Mark gave us the next clue, which ended up being the root of our demise:

"Keep your eyes open for the "light" at the end of the tunnel."

I mentioned that there were several parking lots at the Flyers' stadium, right? Some of them were cordoned off; more specifically the west-end lots were chained off. We headed to the west pell-mell and spent an UNGODLY amount of time driving/walking around lots that happened to be situated near an overpass, under which we could see the sun setting. I guess we overinterpreted the clue and were looking at the outside edge of the lots and near drainage pipes that could have been "tunnels." This took forever because we had to park the car and search on foot.

Unable to find the clue, we drove around again in a panic and almost hit an SUV coming around the corner who probably didn't expect anyone to be there. When we finally stumbled onto the next clue, it was (of course) at the first place we had stopped--and apparently walked right past somehow. A small plastic treasure box sitting at the base of the lightposts in the middle of the parking lot. There were several left, so we knew we were among the first to find it (this clue threw off a bunch of teams). We used the keys from the Easter egg to open it and get the next clue:

We headed back to Mark's house for what would be our final test. We were hot on the heels of the Wonder Twins, who at the last second changed from the left-hand turning lane to the right and took the other direction on the highway back to Mark's place. We continued to the left and went in what was the WRONG direction. This proved to be a big mistake, because traffic was building and we had to go all the way around before nearing the house.

When we did get there, we discovered the Wonder Twins arrived about 15 minutes before us and ultimately took first place. A few other teams had also finished the last challenge--a ROADBLOCK that I would do. However, pp and her boyfriend were still out there, so it wasn't over yet. My task? Match the country with its flag, a challenge often featured on the television program to see if racers could remember where they had been. This proved to be more difficult than I had imagined, especially because the last time I'd looked at an Almanac list of flags was probably in 1998. And there were eight more flags than spaces, some with only slight changes (like two for New Zealand with different-colored stars).

Kind Dentist was holding the answer key and telling us how many we each had wrong. I was hung up on Croatia, Kenya and Egypt. I should have changed them one at a time, strategically. D'Oh! As you can see, I had New Zealand (wrong-colored stars), Poland (the red is on the bottom), Belarus (not even close), England (much different than the U.K. flag) and Croatia (that's actually the Belarus flag) incorrect.

We came in last. It was a humbling moment for H and I, who thought we had this race in the bag. When I asked the Wonder Twin who completed that last challenge, I realized I never had a chance; she had been playing some sort of Facebook flag application game and locked it down in a matter of seconds. Who says Facebook is just a time waster?

Later we heard that two teams bypassed certain challenges altogether and just followed other teams. So technically we came in third to last. But it was a great experience. All that running around, navigating unfamiliar territory, putting our heads and hands together (however four adult hands are too many with a puzzle that small), there were plenty of opportunities to yell, but we kept cool and worked together despite the frustration. Which was comforting. Plus, we were able to redeem ourselves later with a couple rounds of Taboo.

One thing's for sure, though. I will never again look at Amazing Race contestants with disdain. Luck plays a much bigger part than I thought, and it's way more challenging than it looks on tv.

no one's going to date you if you get frown lines

1950s-style Facebook etiquette!



via Eric Skiff at Social Media

the weekend isn't complete without the Indian Show

For the last 20 years or so on local non-cable channels (in Chicago it's Class A stations that air Polvision, China Star TV and Greek, Filipino and other cultural shows)--before 24-hour Hindi programming was available via satellite dish--they've shown Bollywood music videos as well as entertainment gossip and news on Saturday and Sunday mid-mornings.

As a kid I'd wake up to my parents making brunch to these shows. And while the music videos are supercheesy (and nowadays a little sleazy), the weekend is simply not the same without them. The ones I catch most often are Namaste America, which has news and songs; Desi Jams, which is all about the music videos; Bollywood Now (?), which is celebrity gossip; and Desi Tunes, which is a local program that throws in some South Indian* videos once in awhile. I'm sure there are a bunch of other shows, too, but it all depends on what's available in your area.

The segues between videos often have newsy little tidbits.

The highlight of the entertainment gossip show, Bollywood Now, is its voiceover talent. I can only describe the woman's accent as having had a terrible accident (What's wrong with sticking to a regular Indian accent?). She incorporates as many American slang words as possible and, most of all, speaks with the lilting tone people often use when imitating a stereotypical "British mum." However the combination is pretty riveting. I couldn't find a clip, but here's an example of an interview done with a completely un-weird voiceover--it's from a show that aired on the west coast sometime in 2007.

Lovely, but it doesn't have quite the panache as the crazy lady who does the show that we get. The actor featured, Aishwariya Rai Bachchan, is in Steve Martin's latest Pink Panther movie.

My favorite part of the weekend programming is a feature on Namaste America called the Shout Outs. People write in their little messages and Obaid Kadwani, a serious-looking guy who sometimes does the news, reads them out.

I can't imagine anyone doing it better. One of these days I'm going to send one in. Probably to H, because as much as he pretends he's not paying attention, I like to think he secretly loves this stuff. But more likely, he just tolerates it because I love it.

How can I have a post about the Indian Show without a clip of what it's all about? I would have embedded it, but the best version of "Desi Girl" from the film Dostana with subtitles has embedding removed. The movie takes place in Miami, and these two guys pretend to be a gay couple in order to be roommates with the woman they both are interested in. Subtitles are often RIDICULOUS on these songs, but I chalk that up to translators whose English isn't as strong as their Hindi.

I should go back to school, learn Hindi properly, and do some of these lyric translations justice. It could be a totally new career path! However, it probably won't deter Bollywood from incorporating English phrases that don't make sense--whoever approved "Krazzy" as an alternate spelling for "Crazy" should be smacked around--but there's only so much one desi girl can do.

*It's important to note that Bollywood alone is not a fair representation of all things Indian. When you cross a state border in India, it's like going into another country with its own language, food, customs and dress. The movie industry puts out about three films a day, but that's across 18-some official languages, which each has its own "-wood." Not to mention the documentaries, theatrical productions, etc. And there's a lot I don't know about this stuff; my love for Hindi movies is tied up in the nostalgia of my childhood.