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Frequent Links
Zygapophysial joint
|Zygapophysial joint
A thoracic vertebra. The zygapophysial joint is the joint between the superior articular process (labeled at top) and the inferior articular process (labeled at bottom)
Median sagittal section of two lumbar vertebrae and their ligaments
|Articulationes zygapophysiales
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|Anatomical terminology
The zygapophysial joints (zygapophyseal, apophyseal, Z-joints, or facet joints) are a set of synovial, plane joints between the articular processes of two adjacent vertebrae. There are two facet joints in each spinal motion segment.
The biomechanical function of each pair of facet joints is to guide and limit movement of the spinal motion segment. In the lumbar spine, for example, the zygapophysial joints function to protect the motion segment from anterior shear forces, excessive rotation and flexion. Zygapophyseal joints appear to have little influence on the range of side bending (lateral flexion). These functions can be disrupted by degeneration, dislocation, fracture, injury, instability from trauma, osteoarthritis, and surgery. In the thoracic spine the zygapophysial joints function to restrain the amount of flexion and anterior translation of the corresponding vertebral segment and function to facilitate rotation.
Facet joint arthritis
In large part due to the mechanical nature of their function, all joints undergo degenerative changes with the wear and tear of age. This is particularly true for joints in the spine, and the zygapophysial joint in particular. This is commonly known as facet joint arthritis or facet arthropathy.
Facet joint arthritis often manifests as a dull ache across the back. However like many deep organs of the body it can be experienced by the patient in a variety of referral pain patterns. The location of facet joints, deep in the back and covered with large tracts of paraspinal muscles, further complicate the diagnostic approach. Typically facet joint arthritis is diagnosed with specialized physical examination by specialist physicians. Advanced imaging such as MRI or CT may be necessary to confirm the diagnosis and to rule out other conditions.
Conservative treatment of facet joint arthritis involves chiropractic, physical therapy, or osteopathic medicine with correction of posture and biomechanics being the key. Acupuncture and Chinese medicine can provide pain relief as well as increasing blood flow to the tissues to promote healing. More advanced cases involving severe inflammatory response in the Z-joint, not unlike a swollen arthritic knee. Steroid injections may provide temporary pain relief. This is typically performed under image guidance to ensure accuracy given the complex shape and deep location of the facet.[1]
Ancient Greek: zygon ("yoke") + apo ("out/from") + phyein ("grow")
See also
External links
- Diagram at spineuniverse.com
- Diagram at necksurgery.com
- Emedicine article on Lumbosacral Facet Syndrome


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Blindspot 2×16 informations
Hello everyone, Discover the stills from Blindspot season 2 – 'Evil Did I Dwell, Lewd Did I Live' episode (2×16) on Air March 22 at 8/7c on NBC ! For our greatest misfortune, the series is still in break for shooting for about 1 month ! (It's really boring when you know that they do that every 4/5 episodes!) I'll add you below the promotional video of the episode and the synopsis! + HQ Pictures are available in the gallery.
With Nas's (Archie Panjabi) help, Weller (Sullivan Stapleton) and Jane (Jaimie Alexander) finally come face-to-face with Nas's inside source within Sandstorm, and square off with an old foe.

subset: commoncrawl


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"Bamboo Pink Press Release"
There are only 14 more days for Free Sign Up and to build your TEAM during this time while its Free
There are No Obligations No Risks
March 15th Last Free Signup Day!!
Bamboopink is a new fashionable, yet affordable jewelry line made and designed by JudeFrances, a famous, high-end designer whose current line is sold in upscale department stores, is all over the red carpet and worn by Oprah! Check them out at www.judefrances.com. This company is the first of its kind, an internet launched company with virtual trunk shows…there are no parties to host and no phone calls to make.
Sign-ups are free, with no risks or obligations. The free signing period is only for 30 days (through March 15), after that you will have to pay to be a consultant.
What sets this company apart from other direct sales companies:
* GROUND FLOOR opportunity (probably won't ever happen to you again!)
* Strongest comp plan in the industry
* Very successful "designer" multi-million dollar jeweler making/backing this jewelry, so sure to be successful
* Instead of growing one sales rep at a time, this business model using the free sign-up period – we can grow fifty sales reps at a time – but the time to do that is NOW!
This company is going to explode in a few weeks with a national press release and official launch. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So be one of the first to sign up!
Then you can do the same as me and get credit for signing up your friends, which is what we are compensated for with jewelry and other great prizes. It is not about selling the jewelry at this point, but networking and creating interest. If you decide not to sell, you have lost nothing and your name is dropped from the list.
It's simple to sign up, go to my site: https://www.bamboopink.net/myjewelry
Copy this email (text and picture) into a new message and replace my webpage link with your webpage link and send it to your friends. You could win some awesome prizes and you could be building a fabulous network for yourself very quickly. We'll watch this company grow and build together and have fun earning jewelry and other great prizes along the way!
And I wouldn't wait to pass this along! Check out the first (of many) promotions below - you could win these beautiful $1,350 diamond earrings if you get just 6 of your friends to sign up 6 of their friends in the next 72 hours!!!
Bamboopink is a new fashionable, yet affordable jewelry line made and designed by a JudeFrances, a famous, high-end designer whose current line is sold in upscale department stores, is all over the red carpet and worn by Oprah and the likes! Check them out at www.judefrances.com. Analysts speculate that Bamboopink will be the largest women's internet start-up company in history. The company has a cutting-edge business model, and the jewelry will be sold through consultants on our personal websites and through "virtual" jewelry parties. Please see below email for what sets this company apart from other direct sales companies!
This is an AMAZING, once-in-a-lifetime ground-floor business opportunity by private invitation only, and I hope you will consider joining me!
Please see additional information below and attached. Also, if anyone would like to learn more, please join our conference call.
Phone # 712-432-0075
Pin 472712#
8 pm CST
Playback # 712- 432-1085
If you have questions please send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com
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It all started in 2001. The Canadian Broadcasting Company (also known as the CBC or the Mothership) had this idea that everyone in Canada reading the same 5 books, discussing them, defending them, and picking their favorite would be a good thing not only for reading, but for the country in general. And so, Canada Reads was born.
This year marks the Canada Reads eleventh anniversary and, my, how the infant has grown. Here's a summary of how Canada Reads works.
In the fall of the previous year (2011 for the awards given last week) Canadians were asked for recommendations of books by Canadian authors, currently in print, and written or translated into English. Previous years have all focused on fiction, but for the first time, in 2012, competition was for non-fiction books. A book could have been published in any year, as long as it was still in print.
Each recommendation garnered one point for that book. The 40 books with the most points at the end of the 18-day voting period made the cut.
A second round of public voting narrowed the list to 10 and that list was made public on two CBC radio programs at the beginning of 2011 November.
Each "read" involves five well-known Canadians selected to act as book defenders. This year they were a TV star, model, high-profile CEO, musician, and lawyer. Each of them picked one book from the top ten list, and those five, defended by their advocate, went into the final competition.
During one-hour debates, broadcast daily from 2012 February 6 to 9, the five defenders debated the merits of their chosen books. These programs were broadcast on CBC radio and television, and were live-streamed on the Internet.
Canadians have a reputation for being nice, so it was a surprise for a lot of people when on Day 1, one of the debaters—the lawyer—made comments that were somewhere between inflammatory and downright rude. Her book was voted off on Day 2. Controversies continued throughout the week.
The spin out this year reached incredible proportions: blogs, tweets, discussion on regional and local CBC programs, library and book store displays, discussions in coffee shops. Keep in mind this was about reading, a topic that rarely generates a yawn.
After four exhausting days, here's how the results turned out:
Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat, defended by Arlene Dickinson (eliminated on day 1)
The Tiger by John Vaillant, defended by Anne-France Goldwater (eliminated on day 2)
On a Cold Road by Dave Bidini, defended by Stacey McKenzie (eliminated on day 3)
The Game by Ken Dryden, defended by Alan Thicke (eliminated in a tough tie-breaker on day 4)
Something Fierce by Carmen Aguirre, defended by Shad (The winner)
There was one other winner. Each year the publisher of the winning book makes a financial donation to a national adult literacy organization. This year's recipient was Frontier College's Aboriginal Literacy Program. For over 100 years, Frontier College has used volunteers to deliver literacy programs across Canada. Their Aboriginal Literacy Programs operate in more than 60 First Nation and Métis communities; many are in the most isolated communities in Canada. Additionally, Frontier College contributes books into these communities.


text: The Single Best Thing You Can Do For Your Health and Happiness Robb SuttonJanuary 9, 2012 A friend and business partner of mine forwarded on this video to me this morning. In my opinion, it is a much watch for everyone. Outside of being one of the be... Lifestyle Design


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The conclusion that the world's dominant economic model—a globalized form of neoliberal capitalism, largely based on international trade and fueled by extracting and consuming natural resources—is the driving force behind planetary destruction will not come as a shock, but the model's detailed description of how this has worked since the middle of the 20th century makes a more substantial case than many previous attempts.Some days its tough to be trendy and radical. The 1950s went from an era of Babbitry (the immediate perception) to an era of less inequality and union contracts generating middle class incomes (a more recent perception) to capitalism sowing the greenhouse gases of the planet's destruction. And globalization -- the Perpetually Aggrieved are troubled more by the losses of purchasing power in the Rust Belt than they are by the emergence of two or three United States's worth of middle classes elsewhere -- is now a contribution to that destruction.
A worrying trend, notes the paper, is how a growing global middle class—exemplified by those in the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—is an increasing threat to the planet as the consumer mindset established in the OECD nations, particularly the U.S., spreads.Reason's Ronald Bailey proposes that people contemplate a trade-off. "Is the energy and climate debate really an argument about morality, pitting those whose standard is a flourishing humanity against those whose standard is a burgeoning natural world?" Perhaps, or perhaps it's the Perpetually Aggrieved, making yet another "see that big house, see all those little houses" assertion.
Before the Industrial Revolution, human societies were mainly powered by human muscles. The average person burns 2,000 calories per day. A gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 calories, the amount energy a human body burns in 15 days. The machines that Americans use every day to power their homes, commute, work, and play, consume about 186,000 calories per person—the equivalent of 93 human servants consuming 2,000 calories daily.Here's one calculation (I have not reviewed the model or studied the footnotes) of the effects of continued fossil energy use in the presence of anthropogenic warming.
Without climate change, people in 2100 would supposedly be 10 times richer. It is really more just for people today with global average per capita incomes of $10,000 to sacrifice so that people living in 2100 will have average incomes of $100,000 instead of only $80,000?Or for people, worldwide, to go cold turkey on fossil fuels, and return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when knighthood was in flower and life, even for the titled nobility, was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short?


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An epic Sunday afternoon on the bay –
And, this couple with GSD on bow-watch, get the "First Boat On The Lake 2016" award:
As we move into a few cold days, the wood fire burns and all is cosy inside the icebound boat.
The frozen surroundings are harsh, but peaceful and serene.
Only the television set reminds us of the even harsher world of the "normal" citizens living their mundane and structured, system dependent lives …..
Many people ask us what it is about being up here, when most people who live on boats want to go south. To us, the change of seasons is a wonderful thing and we enjoy winter, once the snow and ice had set in.
As I look across the vast, open stretch of the bay of solid ice, I get the serene feeling not unlike when I used to look across the stretch of ocean under our boat on a calm passage.
And, this winter, being here alone on the bay, is the greatest feeling of all.
As an experiment, I placed the webcam on a tripod on the side of the street in front of the Buckeye Centre. The cam, WiFi booster, netbook computer and power pack stayed for two day and two nights, overlooking the swing bridge and Lock 32 of the Trent Severn Waterway. This is a video compilation of some of the randomly archived webcam images:
Wendy and I have lived in BC, in Mexico, the Turks & Caicos, the Florida Keys, Toronto and Keswick, yet I never stop amazing myself about Bobcaygeon. To me, this little town has something more special than any other place. Maybe because I am getting older and slower, perhaps I have more time now to smell the proverbial roses.
Bobcaygeon is said to be perched upon "the land (in) between".
A Land Between is what ecologists call an "ecotone"; a transitional area of geology and vegetation between two differing land masses.
This ecotone lies between the rocky Canadian Shield and the grassy St. Lawrence Lowlands, stretching across south-central Ontario from Georgian Bay to Kingston.
This landscape is less rugged than in the near-north, but not as flat and arable as to the south. Here, you may notice more open areas and exposed bedrock in shades of grey and pink. Looking further you will see that the landscape undulates in patterns of low to high and wet to dry. It has fewer roads than areas to the south, small dispersed communities like Bobcaygeon, scattered farm lands between woods, and a diversity of nature.
Our Land Between is home to a host of overlapping species from the north and the south, which has encouraged sharing between First Nations cultures for thousands of years. European settlers couldn't figure out what to do with its ever-changing patchwork of rock barrens, rivers, lakes and marshlands and it wasn't until the Victorian fascination with "wilderness" that The Land Between found a place in the collective psyche of Canadians.
So, that's the scientific description but to me, this "land between" means that I live somewhere between the tropics and the arctic, so to speak. I enjoy the change of seasons and even winter, but I don't like the completely frozen tundra where ice covers all the waters that are so important to me. (Neither can I handle the tropical heat like I used to anymore.) In Bobcaygeon, in between the beauty of snow and ice, there is always some open water to sooth my soul and I am fortunate to live on the side of a channel of rapids that don't freeze over and there is plenty of places for me to see open water, year round.
It certainly helped to make the transition of going from 30 years of full time living on a boat, to a seasonally land based residence.
Here are a few images I just took on this wonderful day around Beautiful Bobcaygeon:


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Well, it's started. I'm officially back into the swing of things with school and such. I'm refusing to take more than 12 credit hours from here on out because of all the lessons I learned from last spring. I also didn't realize last spring just how much side work education majors get.
It's a semi-ok semester from what it seems. Of course, I've only just started as of this week. So things could change. But when my art teacher tells me that I have 2 minutes to draw Medusa's Bad Hair Day, I think things will be just fine. What's amusing (but really not because I remember being in their shoes) is the new students at Athens that have 104329823 goals to achieve. For example, background checks, TB tests, meeting with advisers, staying afloat and not drowning in work. Some haven't even decided WHICH degree they want. A guy was telling me he either wants biology or elementary... and I thought, "buddy, those pre-requisites are completely different!"
On top of school, there's still work at Camp. I'm super excited though, because next week, I have training for Be Ready Camp. Be Ready is held by the State of Alabama, where 6th graders come and learn how to be proactive in a national emergency. At the end of the week, we simulate a disaster where they triage, treat wounds, rescue, etc. I'm so excited for it! I loved working with the middle school kids I had this summer, so this is a treat to me.
Hope y'all have a great weekend!


text: At first glance, this seems like an odd story. Samsung is holding a press event in New York on the 3rd of August, just to announce a software update for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. This begs the questions as to why a software update would need such melodramatic fanfare. Looking more closely at the plethora of feature addons and changes that are scheduled to be demonstrated, it starts to make more sense. Apparently, this is a pretty big deal to Samsung, and they wanted to use this as an excuse to drum up more attention for their product. Here's a breakdown of some of what we will see with this "major update": Fully Customizable Samsung TouchWiz UX with Live Panel and Mini Apps Services Re-designed Samsung Media Hub User Interface Amazon Music Cloud Player, Amazon Kindle and Words with Friends Applications Enterprise Mobile Solutions Here's a quote from the Android Central article with showtimes and more details, and you can see some of this same info in the pic above, Source: AndroidTablets.net and GalaxyTabForums.net via AndroidCentral


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- Fearless Leader - Runs meetings, works with committees, membership morale, pr, coordinates other volunteers, reserves space for Business Meetings.
- Pen - Ewesful News content (emails and website), email reminders, contact for guild (Spin-off, NHA, etc.), maintain gmail account, makes sure no brilliant ideas are lost, maintains list of members and friends, occasional correspondence.
- Purse - Collects dues, writes checks as necessary, bi-monthly balance reports, communicates with Pen on membership.
- Webmaster - makes sure blog entries are posted regularly based on information provided by other officers and that no inappropriate comments remain on the blog.
- Queen Key Fairy - coordinates who will get the key - checks in with Key fairies the Monday of the Business wee to confirm schedule
- Key Fairies - pick up key from Brattleboro Savings and Loan prior to 5 pm the day of the business meeting or what ever arrangements have been made if we are meeting somewhere else.
- Treat Troll - $10 monthly budget for the business meeting to supply snacks - suggestons welcom - primarily healthy treats with some sweets.
- Keeper - Stores equipment, keeps calendar, and coordinates monthly trade offs.
- Social Butterfly - Proposed position - coordinates the folloing - farmers markets, dye days, school visits, fairs, farm visits, and Spin-ins Tabled 9/6/07 meeting.
River Spinners Guild of Southeastern Vermont. Fiber artists and admirers welcome.
January 10, 2010
Officer's Job Descriptions
All terms are two year service commitments. Terms expire in September of odd number years except Pem which expires in September of even number years. Please see About Us for current officer's names. You have fiber passion and willingness to serve your guild - please don't assume that you are "too new" a member to be an officer.
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I didn't want to care, get involved, research, overanalyze. Not this time, not again. After experiencing the less than stellar Alternate Reality Game that was Dharma Wants You this summer, I was ready to move on and focus back on the show itself. And then there was a quick flash during the new LOST promo video: Ajira Airways.
A series of events led me to start pondering the significance of this new website and tie-in. First, I happened to be looking back and gathering my favorite LOST quotes last week; specifically, Locke's. Second, my Facebook friend Sonia tagged me in a note, asking a group of us Losties whether or not we were excited about this potential new ARG. My initial response was a resounding 'no.'
And then I started thinking about Locke's belief in destiny and how we're about to discover just how his island leadership resulted in the off-island Bentham pseudonym and eventual death. Pair that with the tagline for Ajira Airways (Destiny Calls), and all of a sudden I'm quite intrigued.
Here are some of Locke's thoughts about destiny (the fickle bitch, as Ben referred to it); integral, foreshadowing conversations between the man of faith and the man of science.
Locke: "The island brought us here. This is no ordinary place, you've seen that, I know you have. But the island chose you too, Jack. It's destiny."Just something to think about.
Jack: "I don't believe in destiny."
Locke: "Yes, you do. You just don't know it yet."
Locke: "You're not supposed to go home."
Jack: "And what am I supposed to do? Oh, I think I remember. What was it that you said on the way out to the hatch - that crashing here was our destiny?"
Locke: "You know, Jack. You know that you're here for a reason. You know it. And if you leave this place, that knowledge is gonna eat you alive from the inside out...until you come back."
I plan to check the Ajira site on occasion, but not religiously. When the Season 4 DVD set comes out in a few weeks, I plan to devour that instead. It will keep me busy through the holidays and before we know it, Season 5 will arrive.
Anyone else playing along or believe this to be an actual ARG?


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|This is Ares.
I recently got a new fish. He's a Double Tail Plakat Betta. He's so pretty and feisty! I decided to call him Ares. I fell in love with his colors, such real shades of copper, gold, blue and teal all with a bit of lovely iridescence. He's rather hard to photograph, sadly. His blues don't show up terribly well.
This was all very straight forward. The base is a simple gradient with a bit of sponging applied over it to give it added depth and dimension. Finally, a scale pattern was stamped on to pull the look together.
Here's what I used:
- L'Oreal Base Coat - Base coat
- Sally Hansen Model Behavior - Base color
- Sinful Colors Gorgeous - Gradient
- Sally Hansen Black Out - First layer of texture
- OPI Charmed By a Snake - Second layer of texture
- L'Oreal Because You're Worth It - Stamping color
- Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat - Top coat
In hindsight, maybe I should have freehanded the scales. I may redo this one in the future and compare the results.
What do you think?


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HFZ Plans to Demolish Bancroft Building
By Lauren Elkies Schram February 18, 2014 7:45 amreprints
Developer HFZ Capital is planning to raze the Bancroft Building, a 10-story, 61,230-square-foot office building at 3-7 West 29th Street, between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, The Real Deal reported.
The building is just one of three that HFZ, run by Ziel Feldman, plans to tear down in order to erect a 350,000-square-foot mixed-use tower, Department of Buildings records indicate.
The other sites are a four-story mixed-use building at 11 West 29th Street and a 12-story, 108,750-square-foot commercial property at 8-14 West 30th Street. Mr. Feldman bought the properties from the Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church for $26.2 million in October.
HFZ and Collegiate Asset Management, the real estate arm of Collegiate Church, entered talks to form a joint development partnership about a year ago.


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Contact for details
COME SEE THE DIFFERENCE...SIT BACK, RELAX AND ENJOY THE LIFESTYLE that awaits you. Incredibly sized one and two bedroom apartment homes, designed with quaint country charm and contemporary living. Treat yourself to the convenience of being closely located to I-275, I-74, theaters and a major shopping mall. Home should be a place to unwind and have room to stretch out, keep that in mind and call now!
Lease Terms: 12 months. Security Deposit: $99-1 months rent. Pet Policy: Up to 30 lbs pet weight limit, up to 2 pets maximum, $20 pet rent, $300 refundable pet deposit.
Breed Restriction. Cats Allowed. Dogs Allowed. Call for service animal policy.
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Zoopla: Alex Chesterman
With a page for every home in the UK, Zoopla is set to become hot property
Company: Zoopla!
Founders:Alex Chesterman and Simon Kain
Wikipedia for the property market. That's the sell for Zoopla.co.uk, the first community property website in the UK. And like all sites of its ilk, it relies on users to build it fast. Its natural advantage is to be first mover.
So what is it? Essentially, Zoopla has a page for every one of the 26 million residential properties in the UK – ready for you to build. With a voyeuristic, addictive quality, the site enables owners, buyers, sellers and agents to share knowledge, add content, compare house prices and gain a value estimate on properties, calculated using the site's complex proprietary algorithm – a tool that learns with the more information a user provides.
You can check how much your neighbour got in return for their three-bed semi, ask an owner a question, list your house for sale, add photos and make offers. Alex Chesterman (above left) and Simon Kain (above right), who were part of the team behind LOVEFiLM.com, are the founders. Chesterman created ScreenSelect.co.uk, which was part of a merger of DVD rental subscription sites, and remains a shareholder.
But he felt the itch to go it alone again. Influenced by US sites Trulia and Zillow, the pair decided the UK was ripe for a model with mass appeal beyond the estimated million active property-seekers. That's exactly why venture capital outfit Atlas Venture invested £1.5m. "I'd known Atlas previously," says Chesterman. "The area of online property that had the potential to be transformational was something they'd been looking at for some time. We've also raised £200,000 through a clutch of business angels."
Former head of Europe for Amazon.com, Simon Murdoch, and co-founder of LOVEFiLM William Reeve are on Zoopla's stellar board of directors. Its advisory board's not bad either, boasting industry veterans with outstanding credentials.
It'll all mean nothing, though, without traffic. "We're focused on providing tools for other sites to access the information. We want to get the information, which is all free, out there. We can provide a format for the data to sit within other businesses' sites, such as the property sections of AOL and Yahoo featuring a Zoopla-style widget," says Chesterman.
Building a website for your business idea is easier than you might think. Our online tool ranks the top website builders that offer free trials.
Revenues will mainly come from advertising and monetising through traffic. Additional funds will be generated by offering legal (home information packs, conveyancing), financial (mortgages, insurance), moving (removals) and local (builders, landscapers) services. In future, users will be able to procure a professional value report or portfolio revaluation for lenders.
Chesterman and Kain are clearly thinking big.


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October's Almost Over Already
I'm still working on things.
I have a timeline. I get some things done some times.
Other things, well...
My October socks may be in trouble. This is only the first one, and I had to rip out about five rows. Why am I not able to read the chart for the foot of the sock? I tend to knit along, all cocky and full of misguided confidence, and all of a sudden I realize I've sailed past the part where the chart goes off the chart a bit. (Don't worry if that bit doesn't make sense. If I can't pay attention to it, I shouldn't expect you to.) I am pretty sure I did the same thing on the pair I made last year.
(Speaking of, something horrible has happened to last year's pair. If you're up for scary, disturbing, potentially upsetting knitwear pictures, click here. You've been warned.)
The stripy thing, which is the only other project due by the end of the month, is... well... still stripy. I may be running out of stripy steam.
I may have turned elsewhere to console myself.
I may have started a chevron scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts with a skein of Fleece Artist (left) and a skein of Cherry Tree Hill. I may have come to the conclusion that the deep green in the Fleece Artist overwhelms all the other colors in a way that does not please me. I may have to knit a few more inches to know for sure. I may have to scrap the whole thing to go a whole different direction involving some Claudia's handpainted.
I may have started the entrelac socks from Interweave with some solid purple Opal and a variagated purple Trekking. I may have started them even though there's no way they could be quick enough to be November socks. I may not have actually started them at all. The jury is still out. I'll never tell.
I may have disregarded the order of the timeline in favor of a December store-sample project. I may be quite taken with this particular December project, so much so that it tends to be the first thing I pull out of my bag when I want to knit.
I may be so distracted by these two skeins of PacaPeds alpaca sock yarn that I can't think of anything else ever.
On the other hand, maybe everything's done and I'm just not telling you about it.
Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.


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Lifestyle photography. What does it really mean? Photojournalism or candid photography is raw, uncut moments in time. It's a person getting on a bus. It's a split second where someone is doing something and not planning to pose for a camera. It is not perfect photographs featuring perfect posing and lighting. Lifestyle photography combines photojournalism and perfect posing and lighting, creating a more modern style. Photographers that specialize in this create images of people doing things they would normally do in a natural setting. My name is Karen Byker , from Reflections of Life Photography. This is my preferred style of photography, and let me tell you why.
Newborn lifestyle photography is about documenting the life of a brand new little person. It's about capturing the personality of each baby, celebrating their uniqueness. Being immersed in their new life, and enjoying the love that is naturally surrounding them. It is about the feelings between two parents as they realize the future years of their life have been forever changed for the better.
In order to capture these feelings, an environment needs to be created that facilitates connection. Lifestyle photographers often need to be able to photograph their subjects as if there is no camera in the room. For parents to feel completely comfortable takes time, so these sessions can never be rushed. With newborns, I always follow their cues, their position likes and dislikes, and if they should move their arm, stretch out those tiny feet, give me a great big yawn, I photograph it. Those moments are just as, if not more important. Being able to capture the personality of a newborn baby in images is something new parents are sure to treasure completely.
Lifestyle newborn photography takes the planning and preparation of newborn studio portrait sessions and combines it with the raw, uncut moments of newborn photojournalistic photography. The result is a brand new form of art. One that leaves parents breathless. One that leaves a lasting memory, of that perfect little babe and the feelings of love that surround them.
Written By Karen Byker | Reflections of Life Photography


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I decided that I needed a day where I had a "theme" for my post. Since Pinterest is an a-m-a-z-i-n-g resource for teachers, I thought I'd share some of my favorite pins. So, every Tuesday will by Top Pins Tuesday. :) Of course, I'm not going to limit the pins to just educational things though!
Click on any of the pictures to see the original pin/follow the links. Enjoy!
My Top Quote/Saying Pin:
Source: http://bohoreverie.tumblr.com/
Who doesn't love a good quote? My resolution was to find the positive in everything and this quote fits perfectly with that! Think happy. Be happy. :)
My Top Style Pin:
Source: http://www.worldofwatches.comI am IN LOVE with this watch. I never wear watches but, if I had this one, I would. I was thinking it was probably close to $1,000... which is WAY over my budget. I followed the link to find out that is is...
$8,500!!!! WHAT! Sheesh.
My Top Educational Pin:
Source: http://firstgraderatlast.blogspot.com/
This is such a great idea! The sight words are printed out and you put it on a ring. Students earn a sight word when they read the word correctly. What child doesn't love a sticker?! So cute.
My Top Craft Pin:
Source: http://www.talesfromacottage.blogspot.com
I definitely have gotten the craft bug lately. With my new sewing machine, I'm always on the hunt to find a cute, new craft to make. You don't need a sewing machine for this one though! Just a bin, fabric, and some spray adhesive. Such a cute idea!
Have a great Tuesday!


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Laser doppler flowmetry helps assess neck/shoulder pain symptomsShared by:
Office workers who have sedentary lifestyles may show lower values of pulsatile blood flow values and longer neck/shoulder pain duration, a new study reports. Additionally, ischaemia shoulder pain is associated with faulty microcirculation in the neck/shoulder region.
21 Jan 2017 - General


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Former GW staffer and hobby fanatic Brad shares his hobby with the world. I love Podcasting, my dogs, long walks on the beach and playing with tactical war-dollies.
I have then added facings on 2 of the 4
sides of all 8 platforms (so they do not just look like piles of layers of
plasticard). On three of eight
platforms I have finished the facings on all 4 sides. If that makes sense.
I was able to cut the remaining pieces this
morning before work (thanks to an early morning crank call) but ran out of time
before I was able to glue them in place.
The next step is to fill the gaps with
green stuff and then to sand everything smooth. I will then add an engine to the back and a
cowl to the front (to mount a dark lance on).
I am thinking about adding a sail to each as well (might bitz order
those off the existing raider kit but I am not sure yet).
The ravager will have wall plates added to
the sides like the old kit (because I will be using spare side plates from the
old kit).
After that… Model and paint up crew…


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IOP Press Office Information
Physicists create new kind of pasta to explain mysterious, ring-shaped polymers
Please mention Physics World as the source of these items and, if publishing online, please include a hyperlink to: http://physicsworld.com
Notes for editors:
1. Physics World is the international monthly magazine published by the Institute of Physics. For further information or details of its editorial programme, please contact the editor, Dr Matin Durrani, tel +44 (0)117 930 1002. The magazine's website physicsworld.com is updated regularly and contains daily physics news and regular audio and video content. Visit http://physicsworld.com.
2. For copies of the articles reviewed here contact Mike Bishop, IOP Publishing Senior Press Officer, tel: +44 (0)11 7930 1032, e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
3. The Institute of Physics is a leading scientific society. We are a charitable organisation with a worldwide membership of more than 50,000, working together to advance physics education, research and application.
We engage with policymakers and the general public to develop awareness and understanding of the value of physics and, through IOP Publishing, we are world leaders in professional scientific communications.
In September 2013 we launched our first fundraising campaign. Our campaign, Opportunity Physics, offers you the chance to support the work that we do.


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Just a few Q's... I'm heading to Queenstown... what's the best way to get there... should I fly to Christchurch airport and take a bus/train? Or is there a closer airport with a handy domestic flight?
Price is important and time not so important, so the cheapest option would be awesome.


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Newcap's mission for over 50 years has been to move people from poverty to opportunities and economic security and improve communities. Everyday we work with people who live in poverty to help them find those opportunities to make their lives more secure and more successful. We pride ourselves on the lives we are able to touch with our programs.[ Read more ]
Shannon Martinson is a Crisis Navigator in Oconto out of our Headquarters. As a Crisis Navigator, Shannon is able to support our clients and help to guide them through difficult times. "My goal is to navigate them not only through the programs that Newcap offers, but also locate any other programs that can benefit them.[ Read more ]


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Listening to a string quartet arrangement for My Funny Valentine made me wonder if there were likewise Hindustani or Carnatic renditions of mainstream music from India. It is amazing what a classical interpretation can do for a song with a catchy tune. I found the experience comparable to turning a regular floral arrangement into ikebana or introducing a gourmet slant to conventional cooking.
While semi-classical forms are accessible and easy and on the ear, they end up taking away the piquancy and edge from the real thing. Jazz aficionados will therefore not be satiated by smooth jazz. The nice thing about doing something like My Funny Valentine a la string quartet is that listeners with no previous affinity for classical music will come to appreciate the form in its original state sans easy listening compromises.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
My Serious Valentine
Listening to a string quartet arrangement for My Funny Valentine made me wonder if there were likewise Hindustani or Carnatic renditions of mainstream music from India. It is amazing what a classical interpretation can do for a song with a catchy tune. I found the experience comparable to turning a regular floral arrangement into ikebana or introducing a gourmet slant to conventional cooking.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Homeward Bound Desis
A lot is being said and written of the reverse brain drain these days. The prodigals are coming back to India to live in cordoned off gated communities with manicured laws and white picket fences. If it were possible, they would have de-toxed the air around them until it were sanitized like that of the first world.
When the dot com bubble burst, those that could not survive the recession and the tight job market went back home - there was nothing glorious about that homecoming. They were merely creatures of circumstance. The homeward bound desi of today is of an entirely different stripe. They have made their bones in the US, earned both money and accolades for their work but do not want to miss out of the feverish gold-rush like excitement that is the IT industry in India. It is like being in Silicon Valley in the late 90s.
More than grunt work is happening in India (or so the expats would like to believe) and they want a piece of the action. The salary equation is roughly years of experience times two hundred thousand INR per year in CTC (cost to company). In absolute terms that can look like a huge sum of money to someone with fifteen years of experience. It does not hurt either that they get a C-level executive position in the company.
When they left India as grad school students, that kind of money and position would have been a far-fetched dream for the majority. Now with increased opportunities, a lot more people have a shot at being a stellar success. Interestingly men are more excited about India and the opportunity it represents. Women tend to be more lukewarm and this observation is in the context of married couples where the wife may or may not be an IT professional.
After toiling through the unforgiving immigration process, paying off the grad school loans, making the down payment on the suburban single family home and paying off the two cars the decision to head back comes exactly when the couple has finally settled and even "arrived" in America.
The popular concerns are the dangers of raising children in this country without the benefit of the desi cultural envelope that India supposedly provides and the quality of public school education - they often serve as the key drivers in the decision to return.
Men have little to loose in returning to India other than a reduced quality of life - the biggest slum in the city maybe minutes from the gate community, the traffic a daily nightmare and the general travails of getting through the day that all desis are familiar with.
For women, there is much more to loose. They will be trading their freedom for the dubious benefits of having extended family to help raise the kids. No longer can she drive to the grocery store past midnight to pick up something she needs just then, no longer can she wear what she wants, where and when she wants to, no longer can she expect not be to molested by men while using public transportation.
She will live in a gilded cage to which her husband holds the keys, the chauffer will spell her deliverance, the hemline of her skirts and the necklines of her blouses will need to adjust themselves lest they titillate road side Romeos or scandalize the in-laws. Family and friends will weigh in on most of her choices.
Sure, she may make as much as her husband and like him have the coveted corner office but none of that will not stop the passing cyclist on a crowded street from grabbing her - to him she is still the lowest common denominator - a human female body meant to be used and abused.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Confessional Blogs
They trawl for men, display their most intimate secrets on the internet and turn their diaries into essential reading for thousands. Stephanie Klein, queen of the confessional blog, explains why more and more women are making their personal lives public.
The confessional blog is a genre that is more likely to get attention that most others and with some luck a book contract or a TV show. It is good marketing for a wannabe writer and does not involve the stack of rejection letters from publishers and agents. Not sure why a confessional blog written by a man would not be of interest to the reading and publishing public.
Eventually, one morning, some bright spark in a publishing house, fretting into a latte over the imminent obsolescence of the print industry, gets an email containing a link. It leads to a site that combines sex, real life and competent wordsmithery.Plus, the whole thing has a whiff of edgy credibility because there are still people who haven't even heard of blogging. Being next to last to know about something is, after all, better than being the very last.
Reading a confessional blog is as thrilling as stumbling on someone's diary except that you have no way of identifying this person. The more intimate and preposterous the confessions, the faster the pace of the blogger's life relative to the reader's, the greater its thrall on the reader because it is proof that fact is stranger than fiction. Unlike a novel, this story is unfolding real time. As Behr says:
But as a society we respond to anonymous sexual disclosure as a provocation. That's because it tickles a sensitive zone on the boundary between fact and fiction, between documentary and titillation. We want to know whether we should be learning from something or getting off on it, so we hunt down the original source. And we want to be sure that we haven't been hoaxed.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Of Hysterics
How true that while distress, trauma and dysfunctional behavior are still very common, the term "hysteria" to describe the condition is no longer popular.
Hysteria seemed to be a vanished 19th-century extravagance useful for literary analysis but surely out of place in the serious reaches of contemporary science.
There is something quaint and antiquated about the word though the idea is now represented by a range of euphemisms that are meant to be more politically correct and gender neutral.
Unofficially, a host of inoffensive synonyms for "hysterical" have appeared: functional, nonorganic, psychogenic, medically unexplained.
Clearly, killing the messenger has not helped.
Throughout that cloud of shifting nomenclature, people have kept getting sick. "The symptoms themselves have never changed," said Patrik Vuilleumier, a neurologist at the University of Geneva. "They are still common in practice."
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Child's Play
Most often the "J solution" has worked out well for me and I feel comforted in knowing I have someone to turn to as a last resort. I am relieved to see that getting children and child's play to answer questions is not a crazy idea I thought up - recently it won Christie's big business. Maybe we should look to children more to save us from ourselves.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Heart Of The Matter
J, as has been noted before is predisposed towards hearts. They dominate her art work, beginning attempts at composition i.e. "I "heart" Miss Christinia and Mommy" and her thoughts. It probably started a year ago when my father had an unexpected heart attack - in the five years of her worldly existence she never saw me quite as distraught. I had at the time by weirdest coincidence met someone who had attended med school but was now in the business of peddling cardiac drugs.
She must have overheard us discussing my dad's situation and the slew of medical jargon that went along with it and perhaps understood what had happened could have been life threatening. Every morning she included "Please make my grandpa well soon" in her prayers which God was kind enough to do. The crisis ended and life turned normal again. J asked me endless questions about the function of the heart and could not have enough of an animated tour of it that I had found for her. We have not seen it in a while and I assumed J had moved on to other things.
This morning she said "Mommy, guess what the heart in your body is an American heart" I did not know what to make of that observation. "What makes you say so ?" I asked . "Because it is red and blue just like colors of the American flag" she replied.
Trust a child to make connections where they don't exist and make you ponder about it. Extending that logic the whole world has "an American heart" and that could be a good explanation (as any other) for the pervasiveness of American culture and for this country being a nation of nations. Whoever, first decided to use red and blue to represent oxygenated and deoxygenated blood was most likely not making any connection (subliminal or otherwise) to a flag.
I have since shown J flags of other countries that use the same three colors and she no longer thinks that America has a hegemony over the human heart.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Passion And Caste
A few years ago, an American coworker, Dave had made an interesting observation on the career progression of desi IT professionals. "In your culture, a developer is considered to be lower caste than a project manager. So whether or not they have the talent or inclination everyone wants to graduate from being a low caste developer to a high caste manager. That's not how Americans see things. I have been a developer for the last twenty years and I will continue being a developer for the rest of my IT career. "
This man had an encyclopedic knowledge of Unix and C. There was scarce a problem that he had not solved before or could not solve in short order. One would expect the company would recognize how valuable he was and not trade him for five cheap bodies from India with six years of total experience between them. But that is exactly what happened. His billing rate was considered too high to be supportable long term and he was let go. I have not been in touch with him but I hope someone somewhere has recognized the wealth of knowledge and passion he brings to his job - recognized that he is well worth his billing rate if not much more.
A month ago I wrote up some requirements for a simple application and gave it to the onsite development lead, Shailaja to work on. She is quick on the uptake, produces very readable code and requires no supervision - which is a whole lot more than can be said of the offshore team she leads. The product she turned out matched my specifications to the tee but lacked in speed. I would have lived with it like most customers do with sub-optimal performance unless Beth had stopped by one afternoon and watched me using it.
She offered to tweak it on her spare time and I gladly agreed. Two days later I had a product that exceeded my expectations on all counts and had delivered on a bunch requirements that I had not even anticipated. To say I was elated would be understating the case. Beth like Dave has been a programmer all her life and still gets the adrenalin high from compiling and executing code. Back in the time of the dot com boom she must have been as expensive as Dave (and like him very much worth it) but is now fairly inexpensive - she tries hard to protect her job from being taken offshore. It is probably a losing battle. How much longer can she hold out when pitted against five bodies whose combined bill rate is still lower than hers ?
I think Dave was right in his observation about caste system. Shailaja has what it takes to become a Dave or Beth one day - she needs to hone her skills every day for many more years to reach their level. She is already the "lead developer" with administrative responsibilities. It is her preferred career path. She is ready to move to the next level and become a project lead as soon as the opportunity presents itself. In a few years she would have little to no programming skills left and would not feel even a twinge of regret. She would have fulfilled her goal of becoming higher (and in as such more respectable) caste .
Every time companies trade a Dave or Beth for someone like her, they demonstrate their myopia, lack of understanding of cultural differences and utter disregard for fine workmanship that only real passion can produce.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Democratic Luxuries
It is interesting. One of those Netflix ideas applied to a bag. Just an idea executed upon and that there are takers possibly. Who knows? Millions of better ideas abound.
I was not convinced that this was not a good idea. Sure there were better ideas but this one held promise. I could see plenty of middle class women of slender means wanting to trade up. I replied:
Where ever there is a woman with multiple maxed out credit cards,nanoscopic savings, and an unstoppable yen for things designer there is a customer. I think they've hit a veritable gold mine. It may not be long before thrift stores carrying classy labels go online. This gives ordinary women a chance to teeter in insured and post paid Manolo Blahniks - nirvana would appear easier to attain than ever before.
His rebuttal was :
That is already happening, though to a limited extent. Classy high-end brands does not have low margin high turnover distribution channels. Why? Leads to brand dilution, and then it has a salutary effect on prospective buyers in the long run. Hence, I will not be surprised that the site that you referenced is a short-lived phenomena ... if the brand names do mean anything for those ladies that need the Gucci satchel ... then the product marketing group will tie the knot on this site, once they catch up with the business model. Such companies will and must operate under the radar to keep afloat or prosper ..woe to them when they start setting sights upon the stars.
The bag rental company is still in the news. Maybe it's one of those things that the marketing text books promise will not work and yet it just happens to tick.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Workers All
There will be regular meetings and unplanned one-offs. The workforce will disperse between these to code, design, architect, analyze, manage, strategize and direct. Sometimes we converge by the coffee machine to catch the headline news while waiting for the brew to fill the pot. Lunch is micro-waved and most often eaten at the desk.
The life of a factory worker is very familiar to me having grown up in a small industrial town in India. I watched the workers cycle down the street to the factory a few minutes before the first shift siren went off. Like me and my ilk, they looked much the same in their blue and grey uniforms, lunch pails hanging from the handlebar of their cycles. The all wore helmets and sometimes carried tools. At day's end they would pour of the gate and head home. It was the same pattern repeated day after day, year after year. Just watching them filled me with ennui - I wondered how they tolerated their automaton like existence.
At the end of the day, my laptop sits in the closet just like their helmets hung from a hook in their homes and that is just the beginning of the many parallels between our lives.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Pre And Post Roll
It is easy to see why a pre-roll ad may not a good idea. Closing credits in cinema is likely to interest the audience if the movie itself was. It is like lingering over a good wine - you want to savor the last dregs, go over the best parts in your head. You may want to know who composed the theme music, what locations were used for shooting, designed the sets or the costumes. Unless the main content is compelling enough its post-roll real estate can quickly turn into an arid wasteland.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
On New Love
Sheila is a neat freak and almost always deletes her e-mails as soon as she's read and answered them. In the time of Gmail that would make little sense but she's a creature of old habit and never really got the point of unlimited mail storage. There is an exception to the rule though. There are several hundred undeleted mails to and from Yaman from three years ago. Sometimes, she reads them again trying to relive the moment, to think like the person she must have been then or have been transformed into from falling in love with Yaman.
In one mail to him, she wrote :
How does one learn not to see the new in the light of the old ? Is it a problem unique to sentimental fools such as I ? Do I merely glamorize the past because it makes me feel less cheated - gives back my life its lost body ?
I think I'm just too scared to try in earnest - giving the relationship my very best, be the perfect lover and friend to the beloved - because that is the only way I would know to give. I fear that if I do I may squander the love that I have left to give, that someone would have the power to hurt me again.
I see my girl-friends both American and sub-continental drift from man to man, bedroom to
bedroom hoping to strike that right chord that will set one apart from the crowd.. How they suffer - how the woman inside cringes at the feeling of being used and disposed…but it's not wholly true - it is an equal and adult relationship. Women are perhaps conditioned to think of themselves as used - men probably less so...Time flows are different rates for men and women and they seek different denouements.
I hear the excitement in their voices when they finally meet a man who feels just perfect - it's touching to see them so much in love. I pray for them that it is for real and will last - that they don't feel miserable when on a Friday night they don't have a date and have to call girl-friends long distance to cry ease the misery..
And he had replied.
I notice that you use "perfect", "best" quite often. Sink away from those superlatives, and life could be so much simpler you know. As you draw me into this exchange of ideas and thoughts, and I enjoy it, I am also faced with mixed emotions. In all of my adult years , I have never, I mean "Never", exchanged thoughts (and emails) so freely with someone. And it makes me uneasy … there has always been the hope that one would find someone that can tango and dance the dance with you … and when the hope suddenly starts to bear fruits, you also realize that it may not lead anywhere. One pulls back in fear of being hurt again; once bitten, twice shy. Sometimes the will can be so strong to make me so spontaneous that will border on stupidity, but getting to exercising that will is thirty five years of experience. So when I decide to will something, I exercise much thought before I pull the trigger. But I balk at the prospects too like any other human being …you go out on a limb, and then … the pain sets in again. I don't know what to do. You have put me in a predicament!
Logging out of her mailbox she asks herself the question she has asked herself many times in the past three years - how could love transform, regenerate and then just leave like it were a dream. The mails exchanged with Yaman are the only tangible proof she has left of their time together. The gifts don't count - the Lenox flower vase from the first flowers he had sent her, the cellphone that she now uses as her alarm clock or the silk scarf with a delicate swan pattern could have come to her from anyone or anywhere else - they don't bear "Yaman" in their signature like his mails do. She wonders if he remembers her too.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Lunch Duty
I volunteered for cafeteria duty at J's kindergarten on her birthday. Seeing my deer in the headlights look, other parents and teachers came over to show me how I could help. There were little packets of milk and juice to open, silverware and napkins to hand out but to ensure the kids finished everything on their plate was not part of my brief or anyone else's for that matter.
So at the end of lunch break, a huge mountain of food made of pizzas, fruit with whipped cream topping, granola bars, juice and sausages formed in the trash bin. On an average every third child was throwing away more than half of what they had either brought or bought ( though sometimes the difference was hard to tell) for lunch. That the teachers who were monitoring them said nothing of the waste was simply astounding to me.
Here was opportunity to teach these impressionable young children about conservation, living green, sharing the planet's meager resources - the basic math of waste at least - as in how many children dying of starvation could feed on the food in that trash pile and get a chance at life. No one there would know or understand how my Indian soul grieved that afternoon.
J knows not to waste anything thanks to my belaboring the point to death with her. But there are no reinforcing messages coming forth from any other authority figures. Whereas, she has used the same box of crayons for the first five years of her life, her kindergarten supplies list needs her to have a dozen pencils for an academic year. As much as I resented the idea, I had to acquiesce.
It will be increasingly difficult for me to advocate a Spartan existence amid such excess and wastage.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Signs Of Things
Despite his quirks, Anmol is a versatile and interesting conversationalist. Sheila realizes one evening while talking to him that they have been on the phone for four hours, and its been five months since Gagan introduced them. Though they are yet to meet in person, neither feels any great sense of urgency to do so - it is almost like the fragile spell of their acquaintance hovering tentatively on the fringes of friendship would be broken if anything were hastened.
They were talking about how sometimes signs of things to come are conveyed through unremarkable incidents on ordinary days. How the moment comes to assume significance out of its original context and only much later. Sheila could think at least of one such event from her past. "Tell me about it like you would tell a story without you in it - relate it like a dispassionate observer might" said Anmol. "Why ?" asked Shiela. "I'll explain after you tell" he replied. So Sheila did between bites of her Gai Pad Khiaowan.
A young girl is sitting by her bedroom window. She is thirteen years old. It is just the
beginning of the summer vacation. The Sal tree outside is in bloom. With each gust of afternoon wind fruits with pale green wings begin their spiral descent. They impregnate themselves on a soil hard and unwilling to receive but the rains will change that soon. A multitude of seedlings will crowd the roots of the ancient tree. An eagle has his nest on top. When he swoops down other birds flee in fear.
The girl notices little things - she wonders about them. She had started to keep a dream journal but lately her nights have been pleasantly empty. She adores Maugham, Camus and Kundera and has read most of their works. Her teachers think that she will have an all India rank in the board exams which are three years away. She does not know if that is true but it is a nice thing to believe in.
Today she lies reading something very different. It's a book called Petals in the Wind by VC Andrews. Her English teacher has chosen this one among several others for her summer reading from the school library. It is late evening when she finishes the book. She wonders why Ms Peirera chose this one of all things. This is not something the other kids in her class would read. She lies thinking about what she has read - being an only child she cannot relate to the story at all. But the theme of incest disturbs her deeply all the same.
In life's nondescript minutiae lies it's larger purpose. When things don't blend in an overall pattern, it is a flag - they try to say something. Very much like Paul Davis' concept on decoding the DNA for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Years later she will have an answer to her question.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Less Is More
Shunya e Buke was recommended to me an "absolutely must see" an introduction to the "brave new world of Bengali cinema" which I have not kept up with. It may be a while before I get a chance to, but the story line has me hooked already. For a western audience it may be hard to fathom how the issue of the padded bra and the deception thereof could surface only after matrimony. Maybe if they turned the clock back several decades, it may even strike a chord.
We are treading here the slippery middle ground between the arranged marriage where it is quite impossible for the couple to check each other out and the "love marriage" where everything is possible by mutual consent. The couple in the story though marrying for love proceed about it like it were "arranged" - a stretch on the imagination in this day and age but not entirely implausible.
Nevertheless, the issue at hand is one of deception rendering the marriage insupportable. The fear of the miracle bra is real. Why men attach as much importance to the size of a woman's mammaries as they do can be analyzed to death and resolve nothing. The point of the movie is that a woman is much more than her body which is a laudable objective.
Yet the question of deception still remains - a couple decide to check each other out before marriage so there are no surprises and disappointments. She has expensive implants that feel natural to touch and he decides to pop a blue pill "just in case" even though he never had a problem.
That full disclosure before marriage these days necessitates a strip search seems to be a sorry state of affairs. Time was when marriage was about love and romance. When men desire women to have bodies of Playmates, they are forced to up the ante until they must become unstoppable, indefatigable Priapuses in bed. A race to reach artificial and often unrealistic levels of physical perfection works to the detriment of both sexes.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Journal Keeping
On Keeping a Journal. Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one's private, secret thoughts - like a confidante who is deaf, dumb and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.
The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather - in many cases - offers an alternative to it.
There is often a contradiction between the meaning of our actions toward a person and what we say we feel toward that person in a journal. But this does not mean that what we do is shallow, and only what we confess to ourselves is deep. Confessions, I mean sincere confessions of course, can be more shallow than actions.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Out Boted
Fusing man and robot, even if it eventually leads to manufactured forms of self-awareness, would not, according to Kurzweil, do anything to diminish humanity. "Our machines are not distinct from us," he says. "They are already extensions of us, even if most of them are not yet inside our bodies and brains. The human-machine civilization is one civilization. Evolution now is primarily technological, and this is how we will continue its exponential pace."
Thursday, September 14, 2006
The Sad Cafe
Like "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" (the only McCullers book I have read) this is a difficult story to understand and keep up with. It holds your interest but you are not sure you and the author are quite on the same page at any point. That to me is the draw of McCuller's writing.
The bloody fight scene at the end of the movie was amazing in how it managed to convey so many different things to the viewer. I was shocked to find myself going from laughter, to tension and then finally a deep sadness. The movie is reminiscent of A Streetcar Named Desire and Baby Doll for the southern gothic element but the characters of Sad Cafe are wackier by a light year.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Read a Salon article on virginity - It was once a badge of honor. But to the surprising number of adult women today who have not had sex, virginity is nothing but a curse - sad but true testament of our times. Whereas deflowering a teen virgin is still the ultimate male fantasy, not so deflowering a 30 year old one. Her psychological health is in question for having held out for that long even it was for the best reasons. No man is willing to do the honors and deal with the emotions that will come in its wake.
The mystique of virginity was a "man-made" phenomenon from a time when it was possible to command and control women by fetishising their virginity on one hand and degrading them sexually on the other. Since there was no social or religious sanction for cohabitation outside marriage, men did not have the option of leaving the morning after and never calling back again. He had to stay and in as such he had to "own" the woman he stayed with. Virgnity before marriage and unwavering fidelity thereafter was what that "ownership" required from women.
Relationships in the modern world are like picking up a rental vehicle for the weekend or a road-trip. Its a lot of fun, zero maintenance, you do to your rental what you would never to do your own car. When you drop it off, its over and gone without a trace. That virginity is irrelevant today is at once a loss and a gain for women. She gains sexual equality with men, but she has as little freedom of sexual expression as she did before. When men thought it important for her to save it, she had to do so to comply and conform. Now that men don't care, she needs to make haste to loose it so she can be accepted by men.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Alternative Assitance
I've never been inside either of them but from the outside they showed no signs of life. The commuity bus stops by at the local grocery stores sometimes. Seeing these old people makes me wonder about their lives in the fortress like communities. Do they savor each moment of a superannuated life when they finally have no responsibilities or do they merely wait for death to come ?
I once knew someone who lived in Sun City West in Phoenix. Her description of the daily life of people around her was nothing short of terrifying. N would say she had get out of there or the depression would kill her before old age did. Having no means of her own, escape was not an option - her younger siblings had decided what was best for her.
Apartment living for seniors that fosters their artistic and creative talents is quite simply an amazing idea and long overdue.
The colony, Mr. Freedman said, "is a new hybrid that moves beyond that to actual creativity, to growth." He added: "It's not just writing memoirs and harvesting the past. It's about producing new insights and work that is not only personally interesting but enriches the lives of neighbors."
Monday, September 11, 2006
Married And Looking
What better petri dish than Craigslist's Casual Encounters for a little social experiment - the results are fascinating but not wholly unexpected. I had always wondered about ads posted by married men who said they looking for a "discreet intimate relationship". How many bored suburban housewives and nymphomaniacs are out there to fill such a huge demand for their goods and services ?
As luck would have it, I ran into one such man online. When he first contacted me, I did my preliminary due diligence - included but not limited to Google, Zabasearch, Yahoo Groups - to ID who I was dealing with. There were inconsistencies. He was out there "as unhappily married and looking" in the adult oriented mailing lists and groups but as single on the more mainstream dating sites. Being that I was curious about his type, I went ahead and accepted his contact and started to chat online.
He was posing single, 6'2" tall, athletic with dark hair and brown eyes. I asked to see a picture and he looked like he had described himself - not hard on the eyes at all. The red flags came on thick and fast. Upon seeing my picture he said that I looked more Spanish or Italian than desi. That coming from a desi dude would have set off a hundred warning alarms even if I had not known his real identity. Within ten minutes, he was saying how he could not progress in a relationship without physical intimacy - that lack of compatibility in bed was a deal breaker.
I figured it was about time to ask the $64,000 question - i.e "Are the married and looking ads you put out there not work out so well ?". He was taken aback at this but did not try to deny the charge. In the course of the next three evenings that we chatted, I found out a lot of about his marriage, his wife, their sex life (or the lack of it). He desperately needed to talk through his feelings or guilt and shame about what he was doing and I think he had found just the kind of listener he needed in me.
As for my original question, he said that he had got very limited response overall and almost none of them were from desi women. Maybe the male fantasy of sexually dissatisfied wives looking for extra curricular activities was just that - a fantasy. He said "I tried to be honest about who I was and what I was looking for but was not getting any so I had to lie". That translated in my head to "I am a good looking man looking to give and receive sexual favors but the women out there so repressed and backward that they refuse to have a good time without the whole relationship crap".
I asked him how had fared since he started lying. "A whole lot better of course. But with demanding job , the part-time MBA program and a wife that constantly keeps tabs on me, I haven't been able to go much further than meet women up during lunch hour". I sympathized with that and asked what his long term plan was. "I am looking for a job that is at least 80% travel. As long as I made more than what I am making now, my wife will be ok. Once I am out of town, anything is possible." I had to admit that his plan was highly likely to work out. I was by then ready to puke in disgust.
Maybe the Craigslist experiment will be the deterrent for people like him.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Dead Horse
Maybe the frequency at which tragedy hit our people had numbed our ability to react to individual events. As I write this today, I find it hard to recall all of the many disasters natural and man-made that took place between the 80s and 90s in India. I am sure I don't mention at least fifty percent in my list. My left leaning relatives in Calcutta would say that human life is too cheap in India and we deserve our fate for our political apathy and self-centeredness. That unless there was a grassroots level uprising - a common man's call to arms, the status quo would never change, that the country was going to hell in a handbasket. That is typical Bengali borderline leftist speak. Needless to say, such radical statements were made while sipping very expensive Darjeeling tea out of fine porcelain tea cups.
In India, tragedy is mourned in moderation and then we move on – life goes on and a living has to be made. We do not stage public theatricals of our loss, market it and fetishize it like it were the most tragic of all tragedies that has ever befallen mankind. Close to the infamous 9/11 date a Yahoo headline reads 9/11 babies old enough to ask for dad. Old footage is regurgitated yet another time "lest we forget".
Not to minimize the loss that individuals have suffered but to depict the loss of these children unique enough to make headline news is way over the top. Such public media spectacles of private grief not only invades personal space (everything does not lend itself to a reality show) but takes away an citizen's fundamental right to mourn death and loss without being coaxed for sound bites. With such relentless replays and overt displays of grief Americans manage to alienate themselves both from those who may have had sympathy and from those who have suffered far greater atrocities, effectively increasing their isolation and pain.
What about the millions of children orphaned because of war and genocide around the world - children who have never known what it is to have childhood and may have never seen a balloon ? Isn't it shameful and selfish in the context of the big picture to publish such inanity as "When he sends a balloon up to the sky and he finally sees the tiny dot of the balloon go through the clouds, he says, 'OK, the balloon found the doorway to heaven, I think he has it now," says Gabi's mother, Jenna Jacobs-Dick.
How many people in the world care about Gabi's balloon ? Why is Gabi's loss greater than that of a million other children around the world ? We are talking a dead father anyways. Maybe Gabi and his mother should count their blessings that they live in a country where a child despite suffering such a loss is still able to indulge in childish whimsy and be fancy free.
Sometimes you wish America would stop acting like a rich spoilt brat and stop flogging the dead horse of 9/11
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Magic School Bus
she hops on the bus, her
ponytail bobbing. She
looks for her "usual" spot,
and finding it taken,
hesitates before choosing
another across the aisle -
by the window. That Mommy
could not appear on
this side does not
cross her mind being as she was
relative to window, road and Mommy
disposed exactly as they
had been yesterday.
Mommy hurries across
to wave goodbye but
the bus has left by then.
Is this a parable
for a time to come, when
relative to each other
we would be where we
expect the other to be.
Yet by when we discover
the physics of relativity
the moment would have passed,
the smile in anticipation
would have turned a moue
of sudden despair.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Excuse For Speed
In the peak of summer it was not unusual to have a power-outage at night. I remember being able to see the bovine island only when the headlights of the car shone into the limpid pools of their sleep heavy eyes. The remarkable thing about these animals was that they did not stir an inch no matter what was hurtling down their way. It was up to the driver to navigate around them - swishing tails, projecting horns and all.
We had an abundance of jaywalking goats too. They ignored the traffic and the blaring air horns just like the cows did. Dogs and cats were remarkably different in the sharpness of their reflexes as their survival depended on it. Unlike the cows and the goats, they were strays and more valuable dead than alive.
Driving in my town was quite a bit like going on an African safari (we did have an abundance of trees) and sightings were guaranteed. When I first arrived in this country, I had a very hard time controlling my desire to speed given the complete absence of animals on the roads. It was freedom unlike I had ever known before.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Hiring Drama Queens
Finkel's body of research builds upon accumulating evidence that demonstrates that self-regulatory strength is a limited resource that fluctuates markedly, depending on prior willpower exertion, exhaustion and stress. The five experiments demonstrate that when individuals exert self-regulatory strength in dealing with inefficient or difficult social interactions, their energy is sapped and they have fewer resources available for separate tasks performed moments later.
Wonder why it would take research to establish a self evident truth. People routinely quit jobs unable to take the stress of tolerating their obnoxious bosses. Hopefully they consent to an exit interview and tell it like it is. If the pattern repeats itself a few times, the boss from hell is let go.
Just knowing that (as we all do) proves that drama queens make normal people suffer in the workplace and must in everyone's best interests never be hired. Isn't that the whole point of those never ending behaviorial job interviews replete with open-ended questions ?
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Two Women
My co-worker Amy, is curious about India but draws a line at trying "candy covered with silver foil" better known as kaju katli to us desis. She was born and raised on a farm and still lives there commuting 20 miles each way to work, has traveled very little but has a wide variety of interests. She is married to a trucker who loves art exhibitions, museums and concerts. In summary, she is does not fit a stereotype and I enjoy talking to her.
At lunch a couple of days ago, she was telling me about the murder of Jassi Siddhu as reported in TV. Obviously, she had got several key facts mixed up. The tale as she had interpreted it, was one of a medieval and feudal India where women were routinely killed to save honor and maintain purity of caste. I had the surreal feeling of listening to Mrs G discussing the circumstances that led to Rani Padimini's jauhar in my eight grade history class.
I thought I was giving her a patient hearing when she said "What are you grinning about ? Did I say something funny ?" and I replied "The moral outrage of the civilized west at our heathen ways is amusing. Nothing like a bride burnt for dowry to cause a media frenzy. News about India is either about how primitive we still are or how we're taking all the high tech jobs away. Isn't that contradiction hilarious ? At any rate India is all about bad news in the west"
Amy had to admit there was some truth in what I was saying. I asked her if she or anyone she knew was curious about what outsourcing was doing to our middle class, the last bastion of moral values - about the young and rich Indians who were profiting the most from the BPO boom. She said that she had never thought about it.
"Guess what, those are real people just like Jassi Siddhu, and what's more they're smart enough to take away most jobs and there are a whole lot of them out there. Even thought its not half as fun as the Indian rope trick, hatha yogis and modern day satis, I think the west should be interested in what they are thinking and doing - it may impact them" I said.
I told her about the Tania Banerjee murder making special note of the fact that an Indian woman was murdered in this case too and by an Indian man. That was the end of any similarities between Jassi and Tania. India is not a monolithic entity with all parts moving at uniform velocity through space and time. A Romeo-and-Juiliet-esque murder takes place at the same time as when a woman works for an escort service for fun. Whereas Jassi marries and dies for love, Tania is only interested in sex and spurns a man who wants to marry her saying "What you earn in a month at office, I earn in a single evening. I am not interested in marrying you". The first step to analyzing India is to accept such glaring contradictions.
Tania is about India just like Jassi is except that NBC spin doctors don't think its worth their while to comment on a story that so starkly contradicts popular myths and notions held about the country and particularly about its women. My little schpiel left Amy quite speechless.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
First Day At Kindergarten
I put her on the school bus with a prayer for her to reach safe. One other mom said she was glad it was a woman bus driver - made her feel safer. Seeing the bus leave felt at once like the severing of an emotional umbilical and the freeing of a bird from a cage. The parting with my baby now all grown up was so bitter sweet. She was brave, eager and rearing to go out into the "real" world. She woke up at 6:00 in the morning and effortlessly - knowing her, I had expected that. When I sneaked a peek into Mrs H's room, I saw J smiling and talking excitedly. Our eyes met briefly and she glowed with happiness. How I miss my baby already !
Monday, September 04, 2006
Oe And Vonnegut
Reading this amazing speech by Kurt Vonnegut (wish there was a full transcript or an audio recording) reminded me of a Kenzaburo Oe quote. In the concluding chapter of his Japan The Ambiguous And Myself, Oe had said of his role as a writer :
As one with a peripheral, marginal, off-center existence in the world, I would like to continue to seek - with what I hope is a modest, decent, humanistic contribution of my own - ways to be of some use in the cure and reconciliation of mankind.
Vonnegut states the obvious in that speech but in a way that prompts a standing ovation. That is perhaps his "modest, decent, humanistic contribution". Oe talks about the future of Japanese literature and how rock stars like Banana Yoshimoto and Ryu Murakami are not the purveyors of serious Japanese literature. Of himself he says :
I am one of the writers who wish to create serious works of literature which dissociate themselves from those novels which are mere reflections of the vast consumer cultures of Tokyo and the subcultures of the world at large. What kind of identity as a Japanese should I seek?
Whatever identity Oe sought for himself, the beauty of his writing is its astounding simplicity - stark,clear and precise, like this excerpt from The Silent Cry
I had an awful lot of dreams about S too, you know. In all kinds of ways his death had a profound influence on us as we grew up. That's why we had so many different dreams about it. Now that we were discussing it, though, I realize that our dreams must have must have had quite different atmospheres. Feeling compunction at pressing Takashi too far, I was offering a means of compromise. "It seems his death had completely different effects on the two of us"
It would likewise take a Vonnegut to make the art great writing seem so obvious :
A key to great writing, he adds, is to "never use semi-colons. What are they good for? What are you supposed to do with them? You're reading along, and then suddenly, there it is. What does it mean? All semi-colons do is suggest you've been to college."
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Point Counterpoint
A girlfriend forwarded me this article in Forbes on careers and marriage asking me "Whadya think ?" Very provocating question given that I fit into the exact demographic that Michael Noer is advocating men should avoid.
I am professional and do have a career that pays more than $30,000 a year. I have been married, have a child and am now divorced. Some of his characterizations of my sample set in the population are not wholly accurate. He says for instance :
...recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat and less likely to have children. And if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it.
That I think is a very broad brush depiction of women with careers. There are many career women who take long sabbaticals to raise their babies, work on less challenging assignments upon their return to the workforce so they could remain available to their children. When someone allows their career to define their identity and existence, the family and marriage suffers - and this applies equally to men and women.
His suggestion that men may be better off with hausfraus than women with a meaningful job because she is less likely to run away with a co-workers is highly chauvinistic. A man is just as likely to run away with a female co-worker.
..the other reason a career can hurt a marriage will be obvious to anyone who has seen his or her mate run off with a co-worker: When your spouse works outside the home, chances increase that he or she will meet someone more likable than you. "The work environment provides a host of potential partners,"
The logical next step would be to ask that woman retreat behind a purdah and wear a chastity belt for good measure. Should both man and woman perhaps retreat to an uninhabited island, forage for food and be saved from the temptations that may be the undoing of their marriage ?
Elizabeth Corcoran I am afraid does not present a very compelling counterpoint. While she is right in saying that a lazy husband renders marriage unsupportable, her argument is too full of references to "I" to be credible and authoritative. Where is the big picture ?
If the last new skill your guy learned was how to tie his shoes in the second grade, dump him. If he can pick up new ideas faster than your puppy, you've got a winner.
In this edition unfortunately, game set and match - Michael Noer.
Being Busy
"I am busy right now, can we talk later ?" Andy was saying to his phone. A high pitched voice protested "But I need to know if we can go to the store today. We need to buy the party favors and order the cake. These things take time" Sheila guessed it must be his wife. He cut her off mid-sentence with "I'll call you back". This was the first snippet of conversation that Sheila had overheard across the wafer thin wall that separated their cubicles.
Chidanandan aka Andy was the onsite liaison for the offshore testing team. Sheila saw a lot of him during the production readiness and rollout phase of the project she was managing for the client. Something about his wife's voice caught her attention – there was a certain edginess to it. She wondered why he didn't turn down the volume of his earpiece a notch - it made her an unwitting intruder in his domesticity. It could have been embarrasing if the exchanges had not been so completely bland.
She imagined a bored housewife sitting cross legged on the couch writing birthday invitations in the finest cursive to a dozen invitees to her child's birthday. Between cooking a four course meal each day, she watched Bollywood flicks on DVD, chatted with family in India and scoured the web for "good deals" - all of the stereotypes associated with a stay at home desi wife came to mind. Yet, something about this woman felt atypical.
Andy was suave and professional and a pleasure to work with. "Why can't you come home for lunch ? You said you did not have any meetings in the afternoon." her voice complained another morning. Andy said "I'll come home early instead" and she said petulantly "Its not the same thing."
Sheila imagined Andy walking out to the smoking porch and telling her "I'll make it up to you when I get there. The kids will still be in school." To which she would ask flirtatiously "How ?" and he would describe what he had in mind in a secret language that only she understood. She imagined the wife laughing a soft, throaty laugh, her body tensing with anticipation and desire - Andy coming into their status meeting flushed from the high of a love and lust - even more confident of his team's ability to deliver on schedule than usual.
She heard the phone click after he said "I have about a hundred e-mails to go through. We'll talk later. Bye" The wife did not have a chance to respond to that. Sheila wondered what she had cooked for lunch, how she might feel sitting alone at the table eating it. Maybe she would watch an afternoon sitcom on TV while she did. Then the children would be back from school and the house would not be quite as empty. How busy was Andy really was a question that Sheila grew curious about.
Later that day, she met him by the coffee machine. "Hey Andy, how's it going ? Been busy ?" she asked. "Pretty good, Sheila. We're slowly ramping down testing activities offshore. Right now the guys are only running the regression suite after any hot fixes. I needed to talk to you about rolling some testers off the team. When do you want to meet ?" Andy replied. Sheila asked him if he was working on any other testing engagements and he said he was not. That's what she had thought. It made her wonder about the fictitious hundred mails he had mentioned to his wife. Was it more important to look important than be there for her when he easily could ?
The wife called about many things. What to cook for dinner, to remind him of his dentist's appointment, to check if he had had lunch she had packed, if it was going to rain in the evening, what the oldest one's teacher had called to say, if he could pick up some groceries on the way back. Sheila noticed there was never the calls for no reason like "I called you just because" and that Andy never sought privacy to answer them. Did he not love her ? Was there another woman - he did not look the type but what does "the type" look like anyways ?
This nameless, faceless woman who was a voice on her co-worker's phone fascinated her. She wondered what might happen to this marriage if she told the wife that Andy was reading news on CNN when he told her "I have back to back meetings all afternoon and need to finish up a presentation now. Cook eggplants or green beans or whatever you like. I'll talk later"
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Rules Of Engagement
Caught up with M after several months. Was interesting conversation as always but one thing she said stood out. She has been dating a guy on and off for several years now. They like each other enough to travel a thousand miles to meet up a few times a year and have like M puts it "crazy sex" for a weekend. Between meetings they keep in touch casually but date other people. Not particularly important but both M and this dude, Ramesh are desi. She is born and raised in Canada, he has lived in the US since he came for grad school. M has been married before, he has not. She is glad to have him around and satisfied with the arrangement they have worked out over time.
He was visiting with her the past weekend and the sex was not what it used to be. To quote M "This weekend, it felt like we were in a bloody relationship. Sunday morning, he said that he felt guilty about taking advantage of me. I was like, dude, I don't feel that way at all. So what's your problem ?" That is precisely the problem, that she is confident enough to indulge in a no end game, no future arrangement that meets her physical needs. She has a vested interest in keeping Ramesh in her life. Because of having him, she is not driven to the edge of despair to extract a commitment from a man with "husband potential".
One would think that would work out well for everyone concerned. A marriage-minded man would meet M, see wife potential in her and love it that she was not desperate and needy like many women in her age and circumstances are supposed to be. They would date for a bit, fall in love, marry have children and live happily ever after. That's in the fairy tales.
In real life, ironically, the same men who are repulsed by women who want them to propose marriage by the end of the third date read M's lack of desperation for a wedding ring as lack of serious intent. As M says "Some of us girls can never get the formula right". She hurts Ramesh's ego by making him feel like he is only as useful as his ability to perform acrobatic feats in bed. He wants her to feel emotionally attached to him - the reason he does not end the "relationship". He has a conquest to make, a point to prove and the spoils of war to take home.
A husband-material wonders how she is not trying a whole lot harder to get him to stay in her life - it hurts his pride too much to be with her. M is an funny, intelligent, successful and attractive woman. Since I knew her when she was still married, I know she is a fabulous hostess and we thought that her ex was lucky to have a wife like her. Yet, after five years of being single again, M is still alone and looking. The illogic of it does not cease to amaze me.
Friday, September 01, 2006
In The Beginning
On seeing the goat and the shalwar clad people in the picture, I first thought Goatonapole was the all desi Flying Spaghetti Monster church. Not quite so as it turns out. The central tenet of this philosophy is described thusly
As in the beginning there was no Goat or Pole but only unity, so in the end there will be a new being which is neither Goat nor Pole but is at the same time both, a being that is both whole and self-knowing, a being that encompasses the whole of the universe. This is the Goat's aim and Goatonapole in its essence.
There are way too many entities jockeying for the "in the beginning there was" position. The FSM is just one of them. Time Bete will have you believe there were no diapers.We are familiar with In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light or In the beginning Brahma was the Universe, then he created the other Gods. If you are an atheist you might contend in the beginning there was zero and then there was one. Given the choices, the goat on the pole definitely has my vote. It is downright simple.


text:
This year's Goodwood Festival of Speed will see Toyota's GT86 (known in South Africa as the 86) TRD joined by a twin-charged sibling tuned by Gazoo Racing to develop 235 kW. Although the concept has been developed with motorsport in mind, it is technically road-legal.
The GRMN Sports FR Concept features a twin-charger (sequential super- and turbocharging) set-up for the existing 2,0-litre engine that hikes the outputs up from 147 kW and 205 N.m to 235 kW and 422 N.m of torque. Toyota and Gazoo racing have not yet divulged any details regarding performance, but it's fair to say that this model will require less provocation to get it sideways than its stock stablemate.
Gazoo Racing has also tacked on an in-house-developed sports exhaust system while uprating both the suspension and brakes.
The GRMN Sports FR concept features a suitably sporty body kit comprising sculpted side skirts, deeper front and rear valances and a prominent rear wing. The whole shooting match rolls on a set of 18-inch alloy wheels shod with 245/40 R18 rubber up front and 265/35 R18s at the rear.
We recently procured pricing for Toyota's eagerly awaited rear-wheel drive sports coupé, and while there is a great deal of excitement surrounding this newcomer it has to be said that the 147 kW normally aspirated 2,0-litre model appears to be just the tip of the iceberg.
While the TRD version only features a specialised body kit and race-tuned suspension, there is talk of a production 86 variant with a forced-induction powerplant as well as a possible turbocharged version of the mechanically similar Subaru BRZ. Watch this space!