I found this on Craigslist. (re-posting is encouraged)
01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
It’s that logical.
Posted by Anil on December 29th, 2005 :: Filed under
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I have been very tardy in updating this blog for the past few months. With work, leisure and laziness taking precedence over everything else, I have been keeping my thoughts restricted to my own head instead of making a mess of them over here. (Much to the relief and delight of many, I suppose). Well, in case you are one of the few visitors who visit the website instead of just watching out for the RSS feed, I suggest that you subscribe to the XML feed and use a feedreader (like the very user friendly Bloglines).
I am off to Yosemite for the next few days, and I hope to be back with an armful of pictures. (The photoblog has always been updated quite regularly, and it has an XML feed of its own) Until then, ciao!
Posted by Anil on December 29th, 2005 :: Filed under
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According to the Russian Blog, not only is it possible to drink an entire bottle of Vodka at a party and stay sober, it is also the normal way to drink Vodka in Russia. The trick, we are told, is to eat a couple of boiled potatoes, some raw eggs and a few spoons of olive oil before drinking. You should only drink Vodka in shots instead of sipping it, and you should food that has a lot of oil (like herring or sardines) and some salads with plenty of Mayo.
Now, I drink Vodka in shots precisely for the opposite effect – to get drunk in the minimum amount of time with the minimum amount of liquor. Maybe there is a good reason why you should heap on some carbs and cholesterol and plenty of fatty stuff and then drink Vodka in shots without getting buzzed, but I can’t think of one. Hey, it’s New Year time, so someone can surely make use of it, so head over to the Russian Blog and see how the Russians do it!
If you want to do it my way, chuck the food, have the Vodka in shots, get plastered, laugh a lot, make a fool of yourself and wake up the next day feeling that you made good use of the liquor. Every bottle of Vodka comes to the world with a purpose, and it’s against the wishes of the God of Vodka to waste it by trying to keep it down.
Happy New Year!
Posted by Anil on December 26th, 2005 :: Filed under
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This was my experiment today (hence the pompous name, which you should promptly disregard) that actually ended up tasting good. Here’s how you can make it :
Stage I
———–
- Cut chicken into small pieces and marinate it in soy sauce. Use just enough sauce to cover all the pieces well.
2. Finely chop 1 big (the onions I can buy here are really big) onion.
- Put a couple of teaspoons of oil in a big pan and fry approx. 1 cup of dessicated coconut until it’s a dark shade of brown. Don’t burn it.
- Scrape the coconut to one side and put another 3 teaspoons of oil in the same pan and fry the onions until they are a deep shade of brown. Put a tablespoon of coriander powder and two tablespoons of Garam Masala and fry some more. Oh yes, add some ginger paste or some finely chopped fresh ginger.
- At this point I added two teaspoons of chilli powder, mixed it well and took the pan off the flame. (Don’t attempt to fry chilli powder for more than a few seconds else you’ll end up with the whole house smelling of chilli.)
- Put this fried mixture in a mixer, add a cup of water and grind it until it becomes a nice thick (and slightly coarse) paste. This will be our (somewhat) spicy gravy.
Stage II
———–
- Wait until the chicken has marinated for at least half an hour (An hour would be good – that’s what I used).
- Now use the same pan as before and put around a cup of finely diced tomatoes (or just use tomato gravy), and put in the spicy gravy we just created. Put the lid of the pan and let it simmer on a medium heat for 10 minutes. Add a tad of water if it feels too thick or dry.
- Add some salt (to taste)
- Add the marinated chicken along with the broth and any soy sauce in the container.
- Close the lid of the pan and let it cook for 10-15 minutes on a low-medium heat. Again, add a tad of water if it looks too dry.
- At this point I added a dash of Shiraz for some weird reason. It didn’t hurt the taste though I’m not sure if it helped either.
- I also added a dash of lemon juice. Cannot hurt.
- Add some cilantro on top to make it look good and professional.
Stage III
———–
- Eat with steamed white rice. Yum.
Moral of the story: You can add a ton of ingredients into an Indian dish and still end up with something that actually tastes good!
[More on my Food and Cooking set on Flickr.]
Posted by Anil on December 25th, 2005 :: Filed under
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If you do not live in the US, you would probably be surprised to know how many homeless people you see everyday holding up signs at intersections asking for food or money. When I see an able-bodied guy asking for money, my first thought is “Why don’t you try for a real job instead?”. However, then there are many possible reasons why someone would be reduced to asking for charity instead of working for it. In any case it’s not easy money at all – standing in the Arizona heat on the concrete for a day cannot be fun at all, and maybe it does count as work. If you define job as an activity performed in exchange for money, then you can consider their job to be the ‘act of giving the feeling of generosity, satisfaction of doing a good deed and the improvement of one’s self esteem‘ for which they get paid in tips.
This guy decided to perform a social experiment where he would look and act like a homeless person, but instead of asking for money, he would give out free Linux CDs at an intersection. It’s a great first person account of being in the shoes of a ‘bum’ and
Posted by Anil on December 11th, 2005 :: Filed under
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