How to use this Page

कार्टून – मेरा देश बदल रहा है भारतीय जनता पार्टी के दो साल पूरे हुए नही कि जश्न आरम्भ हो गए… नया गाना मेरा देश बदल रहा है रिलीज किया गया… बात ज्यादा पुरानी नही है जब अच्छे दिन आने वाले है बच्चे बच्चे की जुबान पर था पर शायद वो नही आए … कोई […]

The post कार्टून – मेरा देश बदल रहा है appeared first on Monica Gupta.

Ty Mattson created a series of designs to celebrate Homeland by designing 12 vintage-styled record covers inspired by the TV series - with some very nice results. (via Homeland Vintage Jazz Record Covers « Mattson Creative)

I absolutely HATE text language. Nothing in the world annoys me more than seeing someone type in text language. Okay, I do use the occasional text language phrase like ‘you’ becomes ‘u’ and ‘are’ becomes ‘r’. I do use the occasional acronym like ‘to be honest’ becomes ‘tbh’, ‘laughing out loud’ becomes ‘lol’ and ‘by the way’ becomes ‘btw’. I think a text language vocabulary of up to 20 words should be tolerated. (Mine only reaches like 5 which is better but…! ) But when situations worsen to a point where you see someone write ‘I am busy right now’ in text language and it looks like ‘i m bc ryt nw’, at that point, you really want to bang your head on the nearest wall until your eyes pop out and even Homer Simpson seems as attractive as Brad Pitt.

Here is my list of why text language spelling should officially be allowed to get a criminal record (or better still - imprisonment) if exceeded by 20 words in its vocabulary list:

1. It makes you sound like a 2 year old. 2 year olds can’t type and when you type text spelling, it looks like you can’t type, thus making you look like a 2 year old.
2. It makes you sound illiterate. It feels like your mum and dad denied you the basic education you should have deserved.
3. It makes you look like you are so poverty stricken that your keyboard has been bashed by a cow but you still won’t replace it.
4. Text spelling seems to worm its way to exam papers and other official pieces of papers and THAT is despicable.
5. It looks like jumbled letters. It really looks like you are trying to teach little Molly how to read and write.
6. Using text language is denying other people the right to read. When they look at random letters, no punctuation and no use of the teensiest bit of decent grammar, then their mind goes into delirium whether what they are reading is proper or not, thus corrupting their minds.
7. Children will become weird because of text language and will take over the world with signs and posters and literally everything sounding that way.
8. Teachers won’t be able to correct exam papers because if the students use text spelling and the teachers can’t (I’m pretty sure half the teachers think ‘lol’ means lolling about because we find something funny, which really, makes no sense at all) that’s illiteracy stepped up a notch and a waste of doing exams anyway. As it is, the British government education folk are worried exams are getting easier by the second.
9. On a much more realistic note, text spelling is going out of fashion. More and more people shun it and funnily enough shun those who still use it, so if you use it, stop. Or you’ll find yourself tied to a pole near the bus stop getting thrashed by a bunch of geekily cool teenagers.

I know that was a pretty angry rant but, let’s face the facts, text language spelling isn’t great! If anything at all, it is wasteful. People say it reduces the effort to type but it increases the effort to read. Let’s all type decently and read decently and not become slaves to ‘txt lngage splng’ (or for normal people, text language spelling).

I absolutely HATE text language. Nothing in the world annoys me more than seeing someone type in text language. Okay, I do use the occasional text language phrase like ‘you’ becomes ‘u’ and ‘are’ becomes ‘r’. I do use the occasional acronym like ‘to be honest’ becomes ‘tbh’, ‘laughing out loud’ becomes ‘lol’ and ‘by the way’ becomes ‘btw’. I think a text language vocabulary of up to 20 words should be tolerated. (Mine only reaches like 5 which is better but…! ) But when situations worsen to a point where you see someone write ‘I am busy right now’ in text language and it looks like ‘i m bc ryt nw’, at that point, you really want to bang your head on the nearest wall until your eyes pop out and even Homer Simpson seems as attractive as Brad Pitt.

Here is my list of why text language spelling should officially be allowed to get a criminal record (or better still - imprisonment) if exceeded by 20 words in its vocabulary list:

1. It makes you sound like a 2 year old. 2 year olds can’t type and when you type text spelling, it looks like you can’t type, thus making you look like a 2 year old.
2. It makes you sound illiterate. It feels like your mum and dad denied you the basic education you should have deserved.
3. It makes you look like you are so poverty stricken that your keyboard has been bashed by a cow but you still won’t replace it.
4. Text spelling seems to worm its way to exam papers and other official pieces of papers and THAT is despicable.
5. It looks like jumbled letters. It really looks like you are trying to teach little Molly how to read and write.
6. Using text language is denying other people the right to read. When they look at random letters, no punctuation and no use of the teensiest bit of decent grammar, then their mind goes into delirium whether what they are reading is proper or not, thus corrupting their minds.
7. Children will become weird because of text language and will take over the world with signs and posters and literally everything sounding that way.
8. Teachers won’t be able to correct exam papers because if the students use text spelling and the teachers can’t (I’m pretty sure half the teachers think ‘lol’ means lolling about because we find something funny, which really, makes no sense at all) that’s illiteracy stepped up a notch and a waste of doing exams anyway. As it is, the British government education folk are worried exams are getting easier by the second.
9. On a much more realistic note, text spelling is going out of fashion. More and more people shun it and funnily enough shun those who still use it, so if you use it, stop. Or you’ll find yourself tied to a pole near the bus stop getting thrashed by a bunch of geekily cool teenagers.

I know that was a pretty angry rant but, let’s face the facts, text language spelling isn’t great! If anything at all, it is wasteful. People say it reduces the effort to type but it increases the effort to read. Let’s all type decently and read decently and not become slaves to ‘txt lngage splng’ (or for normal people, text language spelling).

Over the weekend Whole Food Market attempted to earn a Guinness World Record for “Most Parmigiano Reggiano Wheels Ever Cracked” at the same time. Gillian Riley, author of The Oxford Companion to Italian Food weighs in on this cheesy affair.

An almighty crack.

As the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano surges towards the Guinness Book of Records the thought of all those craggy wheels simultaneously rent asunder reminds us of Michelangelo’s labours at the rock face in Pietrasanta near Lucca in Tus-cany in the summer of 1518. He and his team were selecting marble for the tomb of Pope Julius II, and his titanic struggles with the obdurate raw material were as blistering as the clashes between the artist and his client. Using the strength within the marble to detach the desired lump was a prelude to releasing the form already latent in the block, described in a sonnet by Michelangelo:

Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto
c’un marmo solo in sé non circonscriva
col suo superchio, e solo a quello arriva
la man che ubbidisce all’intelletto.

The greatest artist has no concept
that is not already present in a block of marble
beneath its outward form, and this can only be reached
by the hand that obeys the intellect.

The combination of hands on physical skills and sublime inspiration expounded in this sonnet are the qualities deployed in the making of Parmigiano-Reggiano. The great wheels contain the imagined essence of grass and hay and milk and the odours of pas-tures and fragrant byres, released by the tool of the cheesemonger, exploring fault lines in the mature cheese as the sculptor teases form and meaning from the rock. The large heart-shaped tool, a sharp point at the bottom and a stout handle at the top, will prize off a lump of cheese the desired size as accurately as the stonemason’s tools.

The crystalline graininess found in parmesan is umami, a natural flavour enhancer. The concept of umami was unknown to Michelangelo, although he enjoyed the effects of it when parmesan was used as a condiment or as an ingredient in many cooked dishes. This combination of various ingredients to get an enhanced burst of flavour is similar to his use of colori cangianti in the Sistine Chapel, where a loose application of con-trasting colours one on top of the other produces a shimmering intensity.

Although not rejecting Vasari’s claim that he had a mind above material pleasures, Michelangelo cared enough about his food and drink to jot down some menus on the back of a letter, probably during his time in Pietrasanta. These were Lenten menus so no cheese or eggs, [more maybe in some other blog…] Pasta and some sophisticated vegetable dishes, (braised fennel, spinach, a salad) with umami effect from salt herrings and anchovies, show an enthusiasm for simple but sophisticated eating. He would have enjoyed the full impact of parmesan at the banquets organised by Bartolomeo Scappi, where it was served as it often is today in chunks hewn from a larger lump. We too can enjoy the michelangelesque qualities of Parmigiano-Reggiano, towering as it does above all other cheeses as the artist towered over his contemporaries.

ShareThis

In reality, we often go into "trances," but don't even realize it. Have you ever been riding in a car, or driving and suddenly realize you're miles closer to your destination without noticing anything you've usually seen along the way? Have you ever gotten so immersed in reading a book, or watching a movie, that all else fades from your consciousness?

These are forms of hypnosis. You can meditate, be thinking about a test, or something else that garners your whole attention, and again, you are in a form of a trance. Have you ever zoned out when someone is talking to you? Realizing only after they've gotten mad at you that you were not even "there?"

But can a therapist actually tap into your subconscious and learn your deepest secrets, or he or she force you to act a certain way against your will?

In my current young adult book, The Beast Within, the hero and heroine deal with this. But Dominic Vorchowski in The Vampire...In My Dreams has learned the hard way what happens when an evil vampire takes him under her spell, and how trying to use the same persuasion on Marissa Lakeland, a teenage witch, fails, miserably.