"We have a grocery store!!!!" written by Tinypliny on estrip.org

Category: grocery

03/23/09 08:10 - 31ºF - ID#48169

We have a grocery store!!!!

PS: I am reviewing it this Saturday.

Permalink: We_have_a_grocery_store_.html
Words: 8
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: e:strip

03/23/09 12:37 - 28ºF - ID#48161

Hello E:Strip!

Permalink: Hello_E_Strip_.html
Words: 1
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: science

03/22/09 05:51 - 41ºF - ID#48155

The Pope says what??

The Pope on AIDS:
"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

Sure, Mr. Pope. Were you wearing your seat belt when you said this? You shouldn't have. You can't resolve air crashes by wearing seat belts. On the contrary, it increases air crashes. You are encouraged not to fly at all. That is the perfect solution for avoiding air crashes. Seriously, stay on that Vatican balcony, wave to people and make all the diseases go away.

Permalink: The_Pope_says_what_.html
Words: 95
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: tourism

03/15/09 11:54 - ID#48059

Lent can go to hell.

You know what? I can't take this any more. I ran into (e:paul), (e:matthew) and (e:terry) yesterday and its time I chucked the cultural tourism away.

Oh, and I officially hate the much touted "Slumdog Millionaire". I have a good mind to push Danny Boyle into a pool of poo for ruining my mood and day yesterday. Keep your depressing tales of India to yourself, you oh-I-am-holier-and-more-artsy-than-anyone-and-all-Indians-rot-in-slums-or-are-evil angrez. If this is all you can see in India, then probably you should stay in cold britain and spin depressing tales until you freeze to death.

YES. People live in slums. YES. There are riots - some of which are senseless and religion-based. YES. There is police brutality. YES. There are gangs. But you cannot take *everything* that goes wrong in a country of a billion, filter out all the balancing good and slam it insensitively in everyone's face for two+ hours all over the planet. No wonder Indians don't like this film. UGH.

Do you know what I heard coming out of the theatre yesterday? Some buffalo denizen wondering about the Mumbai blasts and commenting that it probably put the orphans living in Mumbai slums out of their misery. Yeah sure. People in the twin towers were steeped in corporate evil. The planes put an end to their evilness by ramming into their offices. /end sarcasm

Oh and about the Indian head shake - how can you get it right, if you are a Fanny I-am-so-artsy Boil directing a brit born Indian teenager who has probably never been to India before this movie was shot? Nice bit of cultural mocking to add insult to injury. If you found it annoying (e:Paul), I found it morbidly contrived and irritating. :/

I think the Oscar judges are a bunch of masochistic little losers who can't appreciate happiness and hope and probably think negative is a synonym of powerful. To hell with your myopic little twisted world.

tinypliny writes at 02:09:29 03/22/09 - Comment #46845: I really liked the movie "outsourced". I thought it was completely plausible and very nicely done. :)

I also loved Darjeeling Express!

ladycroft writes at 06:10:14 03/19/09 - Comment #46738: Yah, I have to say I felt the movie was really hyped after watching it. I mean, it had an interesting story line, and I laughed out loud on the plane when the kid jumped in the poo - but like you said, perhaps leaned a little to far to one side.

Slightly off topic, have you seen the film "outsourced"? I think it would make you laugh - and shows many sides.

james writes at 08:01:53 03/15/09 - Comment #46556: As a man, pagan in my pleasures, I don't get the utilitarian function of lent. There is enough want without denying ourselves, much like you left each of us urning for more Pliny.

Welcome back.

tinypliny writes at 07:14:30 03/15/09 - Comment #46535: One more point of hate. They start out in Mumbaikar street hindi but suddenly switch to completely alien English?? It totally messes up the flow of the movie and adds to the contrived overall feeling.

tinypliny writes at 05:17:31 03/15/09 - Comment #46478: YAAAAAAYY!! Let the unruliness begin!!! :D

hodown writes at 04:13:44 03/15/09 - Comment #46477: Tiny you're baaack!! Yay.

mrmike writes at 02:59:06 03/15/09 - Comment #46475: Don't see what the big deal is out of the film, but I'm glad you gave Lent the heave ho. Missed you round here

vincent writes at 02:28:27 03/15/09 - Comment #46474: I'm still holding out of facebook. But another month or 29 days seems like an eternity. April 12th can't get here soon enough. Until then I'm here & slumming it on myspace.

metalpeter writes at 12:30:10 03/15/09 - Comment #46466: Well the first reports made it sound like if you where American you where killed and some guy from Europe was let go. I don't know the political stuff of who supports who but after time it was political and religious from what I remember. I admit I don't really remember since I don't see a lot of news.

tinypliny writes at 12:23:30 03/15/09 - Comment #46465: Thanks for your comments, (e:metalpeter). I am glad you liked the movie. You see, that is exactly the kind of image that the movie strived to portray - that there is no mobility among the classes and there is no hope of any. But I see it as an unhealthy dose of negativity.

A vast portion of India IS poor but Indians value education and family - A LOT. We use education as a means of getting ahead. And there was a raw nerve of truth in the mom dressing up the kids and forcing them to school while they were not interested at all. Kids who stay in school do well anywhere in the world. This is true of India as well. There is no one who has to stay that way, if they want to be better! Education has always been free and will be free in India. Of course, a film is all about artistic license but its not equivalent to the license to take hope and positive messages away.

Nice bit of movie making but an unbalanced dose of cultural mocking.

The Mumbai attacks affected the financial well-being of the city and of the country as a whole. If you have been following, what's happening in the subcontinent after that attack, you will realize that it was not about Americans at all.

metalpeter writes at 12:03:19 03/15/09 - Comment #46464: I liked the movie but have never been to India. What I pulled away from the movie isn't that India is poor. I don't know if the class system really still is how it used to be, but from what I learned is there are different classes of people and what ever class you are born into you can't really leave. Again I don't know if that is true anymore. So when I saw the movie I saw that the people in the slums where just that. They where not bad people but they where a class who had to stay that way. That is why the guys beat the kid up, see he is from the low class so he could never know the stuff he knows. He is from the low class so he isn't allowed to get money and move up. When I heard about the Mumbai attacks I thought that it was about not liking americans who might live in that part of the area. I don't know what caused it all but they didn't go after the slums so I guess those people where way off. In terms of how the story was told I liked the style it followed, how on each question they showed that story that taught the kid that. I liked it sorry you didn't.

Permalink: Lent_can_go_to_hell_.html
Words: 326
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: tourism

02/24/09 11:56 - 18ºF - ID#47882

Give it up!

I have decided to do some cultural tourism, go to Roswell's Chapel tomorrow, be smeared with some ash and give up a definite addiction for some days. (I am disappointed to learn that its not really human ash - as an officemate tried to make me believe. Man, it was grotesquely entertaining when I did come close to believing what you said! ;))

Since its all about discipline, I am going to try and give up blogging on (e:strip) and non-academic non-essential internet surfing. I really thought about what I would miss the most and what I really indulge in and really... this is it.

(E:strip) is a colossal luxury for me each day, everyday! It's like my personal multiple thread soap opera and dark rich chocolate combined into one. I am obsessed with all of you and all of your lives. I read each and every journal to catch up on the soap story of your life. I may not comment on everything but believe me, I am interested. I am very interested when you tell me something more about yourselves!

So for this bit of cultural tourism, I am going to see what its like to give up my pet obsession for a whole of 40 days. Goodbye for now, and see you at Easter? (Is that right, (e:drew)?)

I will certainly miss you all! Cheers! :)

Permalink: Give_it_up_.html
Words: 229
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: i-tech

02/22/09 05:56 - 24ºF - ID#47862

External Harddrive Advice/Poll

I really need an external HD for backup. I looked at online backup but some of the reliable ones cost a ton of money per year. The better option might be to get 2 HDs - make back ups on both, keep one at home and one in the office. I am really tempted by the < $100 Seagate freeagent 1TB drives but they have recently had a string of failures across the globe. Someone told me to build a RAID1 array instead. What do you all think?

1. Do you currently own (ir have you ever owned) an external hard drive?

2. If yes, has it ever died?

3. What brand was it?

4. Was it a USB harddrive or a RAID array?

5. Would you recommend a RAID array or the USB harddrives?

6. What brand would you recommend? What set-up?

Ended up getting a Western Digital 1TB Elements Harddrive

It has been functioning pretty well - but you can never be 100% sure about when hard drives will throw in their towel. I am hoping for the best since this one seems to have such uniformly good reviews at Amazon.

theecarey writes at 12:21:43 02/25/09 - Comment #45900: I was looking at some sale stuff at Best Buy:
Western Digital 500GB external usb portable for $120
:::link:::

or a heavier version for $90
:::link:::

or for $120, the 1TB- bigger, but I don't need to carry it around:
:::link:::

I dont so much need a TB, but the price seems right..

tinypliny writes at 11:28:15 02/24/09 - Comment #45898: Oh my. I don't think I have such high-tech needs. :) I think owning a time capsule makes you a certified tech-whore. ;-) I don't even have wireless at home. I have a DSL lowest-level modem and I have no aspirations of zooming on the super highway with automatic and silent databanking and maybe global music on demand? ;)

But oooooohh.. I am so going to flaunt my new found time capsule knowledge at my sweatshop office. Hehehee

zobar writes at 03:56:11 02/24/09 - Comment #45878: I bought a 500GB Time Capsule for Christmas/my birthday. Normally I wouldn't have sprung for it but I'm very impressed.

Time Capsule and Airport Extreme are basically the same - they've got everything most people would need for a home network. They've got a 802.11a/b/g/n wireless base station and 3-port Gigabit Ethernet switch for all your networking. They've got a USB port. If you plug in a printer, it'll share the printer on the network; if you plug in a drive, it'll share the drive. [If you plug in a USB hub, you can share both.] Additionally, Time Capsule has a built-in 500GB or 1TB drive so you don't need a spare disk. The whole thing is Mac & PC compatible.

In addition, if you have a Mac, you can target the Time Capsule/Airport Extreme for your Time Machine backups. You don't even need to think about it- your computer gets backed up every hour when you're connected to the network. [You can target an external drive for your Time Machine backups as well, but you have to remember to connect it.]

- Z

tinypliny writes at 09:26:15 02/23/09 - Comment #45866: Wow - that's a ton of detailed opinion. Thanks so much (e:uncutsaniflush), (e:zzzzzobbbbar) and (e:heidi)!

I think I will go with a USB but probably a smaller drive than 1TB. From your opinions - portable/laptop ones might be better. None of you recommended Seagate - so maybe I won't be wise to get those. I guess I just need to decide between a Toshiba, LaCie and Western digital.

Time Capsule is too expensive!! Do you have it??? What is so time capsuly about it? Does it have transcendental space like the Tardis? ;)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS

uncutsaniflush writes at 12:36:48 02/23/09 - Comment #45840: Oh,yeah, I forgot to mention in my first comment. You also have a another choice for backup if you have a router - Network Attached Storage :::link::: That's what I'm planning to add to my lan at some indefinite point in the future.

uncutsaniflush writes at 12:14:23 02/23/09 - Comment #45839: 1. yes
2. no
3. Western Digital portable 80 gb and also I had am usb enclosure that I put in whatever stray h/d I had laying around.
4. usb
5 It depends on how important your data is to you. Multi-location redundant backup is a very good idea for important data; so you might consider a raid array at home with a usb h/d at the office.
6. I think (e:heidi) has the right idea - cheap with good reviews. I think one thing you should consider if you want just an external h/d (i.e. one that just sits on your desk next to your computer) or a portable h/d that (hopefully) is designed to withstand the shock of being carried from place to place.

zobar writes at 07:40:08 02/22/09 - Comment #45833: One drive is probably enough, unless you are working with an obscene amount of data - drives are very high capacity these days, and a RAID array would add unnecessary bulk. If you have a laptop and average-person storage needs, I would recommend a portable, bus-powered enclosure. 'Portable' enclosures contain laptop drives and are significantly smaller than desktop enclosures, but they only go up to half a terabyte. ['Only' half a terabyte is more than me and (e:dragonlady7) use combined, and she's a photo & music packrat.] Portable enclosures are also very convenient for sharing large files.

1. Yes, currently.
2. Not yet.
3. The drive is a 200GB Toshiba laptop drive MK2035GSS and the enclosure is a WiebeTech ToughTech Mini :::link::: - both since updated.
4. USB 2, FireWire 400/800.
5. RAID is probably unnecessary.
6. Go for convenience, because if it's not convenient for you to do a backup, you won't. (e:fi) did a whole lot of research and ended up with a Toshiba HDDR320E03X :::link::: which seems to be a good value. If you have a Mac laptop and $300 to burn, the Apple Time Capsule :::link::: is seriously the best thing ever and I will bend your ear about it if you like.

- Z

heidi writes at 07:39:25 02/22/09 - Comment #45832: 1. Yes
2. No
3. LaCie 80 gb HDD (out of date but it backs up the critical stuff - when i bought it, prices were approx $1/gb)
4. USB
5. USB
6. Cheap with good reviews.

(Yeah, I think I need to get one soon!)

Permalink: External_Harddrive_Advice_Poll.html
Words: 195
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: tragedy

02/20/09 11:00 - 19ºF - ID#47822

Day of loss

It's a day of great loss for the community of cancer researchers. One of our best scientists and a close friend of my advisor's was murdered by someone who gained entry to her apartment on the pretence of being an interested buyer.

What a waste of an exemplary scientist! This is additionally painful because this is exactly how my grade school teacher was killed as well. That was the first funeral I ever attended. And how awful that I feel compelled to convey this message to all my friends, family and to you all. Trust no one - unless you really know them and their intentions well. It's not a very balanced world out there.

Permalink: Day_of_loss.html
Words: 121
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 11/09/11 08:07

Category: eating out

02/19/09 10:40 - 19ºF - ID#47819

Question for e:kookcity2000

Hi (e:kookcity2000),

I remember you telling me that there is a Woodlands at Loehmann's Plaza now. I checked out Rocwiki

and experiences seem pretty chequered. What do you think? How does it stack up against the palace of dosas?

I have got around 3/4th of a month to pick a decent "ethnic" place to eat. "Abyssinia" and/or "King and I" are always my backups but I would really like to hear your impression of this new place at the plaza.

Thanks!
TP