What was that again?

Here is an interesting piece of news that should make all oenophiles in the world throw up – apparently, good wine tastes like koala bear urine. You can read about it here: http://io9.com/good-wine-tastes-more-like-koala-urine-than-youd-think-1706588545

Who in this world sits in their lab and conjures up these experiments? Did somebody go – “I know. Here is a discovery idea that will revolutionize the world. I am going to taste all animal urine and see which one tastes most like wine!!”

And who funds these kind of experiments?

Can’t wait till Wine Spectator puts its rating on the new errrr… “Pee”no Grigio??? 🙂

Category: Humor | 7 Comments

25 May 2015

Did you know John Nash Jr. died?

And that he was the inspiration behind the movie “A Beautiful Mind”?

What did you say? You got to know it over and over again from virtually all your Facebook friends who thought they should post the same news?

Odd! Do we have the same Facebook friends?

Category: Humor | 4 Comments

22 May 2015

Puzzle time in India !

Today was the last evening in Kalyani this trip. Like everyday, after dinner, we all went for a walk. “All” means the nephews, niece, my brother, sister, brother in law and of course myself. We, the adults, chat about a lot of things and I usually give the kids some math or logic puzzle to keep them busy.

Today started as an innocuous puzzle. But the adults joined in too. As a result, we amped up the difficulty of the puzzle. We have not been able to solve it fully. Maybe you can…

The puzzle is simple – using just the digits 1, 2 and 3 (each only once) derive all numbers from 0 to 25. You can use any of the following mathematical symbols any number of times : plus, minus, multiplied by, divided by, factorial, square root of, decimal point and parentheses (+ – * / ! Sqrt . and () ). For the programming types, ++ and — are not mathematical symbols.

E.g you can get 7 by 21/3 or 3*2+1 etc etc

We got everything other than 19 and 21. Still stuck.

Care to give it a try?

I am going to sleep now – will check tomorrow morning. Feel free to answer in Comments section.

Category: Puzzles, Vacations | 50 Comments

21 May 2015

Anniversary run…

Ten years back on this day, I had started running in Dallas. Six years later, almost to this day, my brother went out for his first run with me in Raichak near Kolkata. To celebrate those anniversaries, we put in a 10K run this morning.

One of the quick realizations you tend to have if you run in this part of the world during this part of the year is why you don’t need to lick your envelopes before you mail them here. The run was like cutting through a solid shell of humidity. Every time a finger touched another, they would stick together. Yikes!! Dropped nearly four pounds just sweating.

Category: Running, Vacations | 2 Comments

20 May 2015

5 miles in hot and humid Kalyani

90% humidity. Feels like 98 degrees. In spite of starting early at 6 am, we could not avoid the bright sunlight…

Category: Running, Vacations | 4 Comments

19 May 2015

You know… because we have cured cancer already

There is an article today in USA Today to inform us that researchers have made a big breakthrough in understanding why men exist. You can read about it here …

A few points are in order here…. First, this has to be a body blow to the opinions of quite a few women 🙂

Second, who is funding these kind of research? Have we already figured out how to cure cancer?

Third, three letters, I say. N F L 🙂

Category: Humor | 5 Comments

17 May 2015

Well, duh!!!

Apparently, Microsoft just released a study that has shown that technology is shortening our attention span. You can read it here

This, of course, was published by Microsoft’s Department of Stating the Obvious. In the department’s defense, they said they would have come out with the research results a few years back but they kept getting distracted while checking their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts 🙂 I am also guessing nobody in that department has a teenager kid 🙂