ThePanda

While this is exclusively a private blog, & hence most decissions do boil down to Ze Panda picking one thing above other, today I require ne and all readers to participate in a referendum… Currently the blog is archived once every 31 days and hence u can see a whole month worth of content at a glance… However almost every new guy I’v invited to visit the blog, feels that its a tad bit 2 long. Would u as current rdrs & visitors prefer a daily or weekly archive as opposed to the current format?? Wud u prefer n no. of posts to be initially displayed and have the rest of them accessible by following linx? Send me ur prefs, click the contact link on the left (I hope it is the left, can never be sure)......

Neways it seems that God really does hate powered flight, or atleast powered flight as achieved by the Wright brothers, since the plane pretty much refused to take off yesterday. Seems it crashed into a little mud puddle (hmm reminds me of an old hindi saying…....... u either know what I am referring to, or knowing it doesn’t interest u)..

Well slightly over a year back, we had Craig Barrett, Intel’s CEO fly thru Delhi, and well to entertain him Intel decided to get five kids to present their dream techs to him (cheapos cudnt go out and hire proper dancers, or get models to hold a fashion show, or show him his fave movie at one of r rather well flavored movie theaters, letting him enjoy the peanut shells, and the bidis, and the cigaret stubs, and the comfortably razor cut seats). Neways I was a part of the ensemble of 5 who got to go and boar him with r ideas and well I spoke on faster than light travel….. Now speaking on a topic which u actually dream abt, makes u feel pretty inadequate in most of these dreamy competitions, since most ppl focus on getting immense amts of food to all corners of the world, ending world poverty, improving cultural intercommunication, preventing communicable diseases, etc, etc.. and well a dreamy subject doesn’t blend well with the surroundings. Now the thing went off pretty well, with the guy actually ending up bent and laughing halfway thru my presentation mostly because i mixed explaining the Cashmere effect (fancy way to produce negative energy using two big metal plates), with quotes from sources such as Titan A.E. the cartoon, Star Wars, Star Trek and Armageddon, and also becoz I usually shoot from the hip, and well I was carrying no written speech, instead relying on my skills at oration (NIL) to come up with the speech, and ended up asking him (and the rest of the audience) “if the aliens r so damn intelligent, y don’t they travel faster than light, and y don’t ne of them ‘round here?????” Well leaving apart my speech at that point of time the US Government used to sponsor the aptly named ‘Breakthrough Propulsion Project’ (BPP) at Nasa’s Glen Research Center, to try and achieve faster than light (I guess that shud be called Ultra-Lumo speeds) travel. Unfortunately post 9/11 dreamy scientific projects haven’t done well since most of the scientific budget of the world has been directed towards weapons research (something that I don’t like since u end up killing rather than saving ppl), and well the BPP was shutdown without ne of its true scientific ever being evaluated… At the same pt of time a project investigating the feasibility of Solar Sails had also been unceremoniously closed.. Well it turns out that Cosmos Studio and the Planetary Society plan to independently launch a Solar Sail using a modified ICBM fired off a Russian Nuclear Submarine.. Not only does this development show the importance of private enterprise, it leaves some hope that crazy dreamy projects, the kind that I like, wud eventually be tried out, privately of not publicly…...... Kudos to the Cosmos 1 Project.

Neways I have been discussing this dish we have in my part of India with a few friends (mostly to show that the 3% alcohol content in Beer is not really that high, despite not drinking or advocation beer I don’t think we shud be blaming it as something it isnt) and well these discussions have kindda shown me that cultural intermingling atleast in terms of food isn’t as smooth as i thought it was… But first the dish, well its called pakhalo (try pronouncing it, if u cant well me cant either correctly) and essentially consists of left over rice being put in water at room temp and left out for the night, and the subsequent morning (i.e. eaten the next day at lunch).. Now leaving rice out in water like this obviously leads to fermentation and well the water and rice combination subsequently contains close to 5% alc content V/V (fancy abbr. for volume/volume) while beer has a mere 3% alc V/V… Now this dish is something which my dad really enjoys, specially during hot sunday afternoons (think summers). It really can’t be eaten on any other day since it makes u verrrrrryyyyy verrrryyyy sleepy. Now most of my friends whuv heard abt how this dish is made, r not exactly very happy abt it, and cant really understand y someone wud want to eat something which sounds so damn strange…. Unfortunately for most of my friends, wheat rather than rice is the staple cereal, making it very hard for me to explain how rice really can’t be kept out in the open for all that long since it dries up… So despite ppl trying out things like shushi, sake, etc cultural acceptance for foods from other seemingly foreign cultures isn’t as much as it appears to be. Now if a deli served this with a fancy name and a fancy price tag, ppl wudnt care abt the fact that the dish itself appears to be strange, on the other hand when Ze Panda mentions it ppl r much less forgiving of the dish…... SAD I SAY, ZE PANDA SAYS REALLY SAD…

Unfortunately I cudnt get thru to the guy whose supposed to pick me up tomorrow for my judging appointment and while I asked him to come ‘round at 8:20, he like most ppl in Delhi runs on Indian Stretchable Time (IST) and well I don’t really know how late he’s gonna be. Since I have to start an event at 9 and I usually try to be punctual I am kindda worried abt when he’s gonna arrive and well ME AM SCARED…......................

Ze Panda
Worrying abt arrival at DPSVK tomorrow, while drooling over the prospect of pizzas for lunch, and at judging SP, JP, & SD..