Astrovelo

Watched these two movies during the last 3 weeks or so. It was good to see that actors were actually in roles suitable for their age and not the usual middle-aged-men-acting-like-teenagers running around trees in a park. Both the films dealt with changes brought by retirement in someone’s life and their family’s lives.

“Jogger’s Park” was very well made. Everyone acted well, especially, Perizaad Zorbian. It was hard to believe that this was her second-ever movie. No complaints except the last 15-20 minutes, when Victor Banerjee (a retired judge) is threatened with exposing his fling with a young model (Perizaad) in the media and the lecture on morality delivered by his daughter. They could have just ended the movie when Victor and Perizaad decide not to see each other anymore and go their own way. That would have been a perfect ending for me. Oh, yeah! Also, they could have done without that stupid song featuring Perizaad.

“Baghban” was basically a time-tried story of ‘children not treating their elderly retired parents well’. BTW, what does Baghban mean? I went to the kitchen for something when they talked about it.

• The best part of the movie was Hema Malini. She looked better than any of the other younger women in the movie. Actually, she looked better than even herself from older movies. It is amazing how gracefully she has aged. On the other hand, Jaya Bhaduri (not in this movie) looks like a bloated frog.
• Amitabh Bachchan did a good job as the tortured father. My only suggestion to him would be to get a better wig or just expose the receding hairline. Baldness is nothing to be ashamed of. It would be much better than his stupid wig. His hairstyle is still languishing in the late 70s-early 80s. Maybe, that is when he got this wig made.
• I don't know when Indian story/script writters will realise that the difference between good and bad doesn't have to be as much as the tip of mount everest and deepest point in the pacific ocean. The biological family of AB and HM treats them so badly and their adopted son worships them as God. This is just crazy.
• How could anyone not have any money to repair broken glasses, but have a big mansion that was kept vacant?
• Would someone tell Salman Khan that to sound sincere, he doesn't need to whisper? All through the movie, he sounded as if he was talking on the '1-800-phonesex' line.
• When I was watching the movie I had many more comments, but it has been a few days since then and can't remember any more.
• I would recommend this movie to everyone just to see how good Hema Malini looks. You can actually forward the tape/DVD as soon as she walks out of the picture.

A big snow/ice storm is heading this way. May get a snow day tomorrow. Keeping my fingers crossed…

We have a crawler on the prowl. Ashwini is enabled with crawling technology as of Friday, January 23rd.

I was here one year ago. It was fun skiing in Taos. Hope to do some skiing this year, too.

Run….. Run…… Puff is coming this way.

A phenomenon called ‘Ashwini’ expands to fill up all available space and time.

What is life?

• It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
• It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
• It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

-Crowfoot, Native American warrior and orator (1821-1890)

Thanks, kohamm for reminding me to do this by posting yours.

I am extremely happy to welcome my new friend, Puff-the dragon to my new colorful playroom. Looking forward to having a lot of fun with her.

Composite of Jupiter photos. One was taken with shorter exposures to view the surface details and other with longer exposures to view the moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede.

At the risk of sounding obsessed with this intern, here is another update.

Her pictures and herself have disappeared. Haven’t seen her in the new year. Her desk is all cleaned out.

This is about a person mentioned in previous posts: Picture on the wall, and Update

I thought Sampada’s comment on this issue was the best.

The big crater in the top left corner is Bullialdus, the double crater in the top right corner is Gassendi. The center of the picture shows a 150 Km long mountain range called Montes Riphaeus. Two big craters below the mountain range are Lansberg and Reinhold.

Took this picture back in October, but didn’t get around to finding the names of the features from the Moon atlas.

All decked up to go out in the snowy and frigid January morning.

At 10 months, Ashwini is:
• sitting up without any help
• eager to stand up all the time, although she can't balance herself well yet
• trying to start crawling from sitting position, but ends up on her tummy most of the times
• babbling constantly
• very excited when she sees her favorite toys and produces these ear-piercing screams
• learning to clap with her hands. She is already an expert clapper using her feet
• admiring herself in the mirror at every opportunity she gets
• mistaking her pictures for a mirror and smiles at them
• interested in throwing all her toys and then crawls/rolls to them, just to throw them again
• eating 'second foods' in Gerber and Heinz terminology; loves to eat spinach, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes and of course, her usual carrots, green beans, bananas and pears
• starting to develop a taste for yogurt
• eyeing all the food her parents eat in front of her and is more interested in eating that
• sleeping through the night most of the nights

During the holiday shopping season of 2003, the highest percentage increase in sales of an item over 2002, was for watches that cost over $10,000. I would be afraid to even touch one of those. But, what is the deal? Do these watches tell better time than any cheap plastic digital one?

Right now, the temperature is 8F (-14C) with windchill of -11F (-24C). Not the coldest that I have ever seen, but, definitely cold. Probably, the coldest day of this winter season yet.