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.

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.

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! :)

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?

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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.

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.