3.29.2004

- Now learning how to dive off starting blocks for starts in the swimming pool. Next class on, we learn platform and springboard diving... can't wait!
- Paperwork just sucks!
- Ain't no sunshine when she's gone...

3.22.2004

- Back to work. Kinda sucks. But a good long break is just what I needed.

- Went to the rodeo with Shokie and gang... good fun. Mozart's, Sixth Street and Steak Dinner the night before.

Ok... Managed to recover most of the stuff.

- Lost in Translation : 5/5
Awesome movie.

- Monsters Inc - another great movie (4.5/5). Sliding Doors - Whoever thought of making this movie was a moron. Horrible!

- South by Southwest (SXSW) is awesome. It's a music/film festival in Austin (usually happens every year the week of spring break)... From Wed (March 17) to Sun (Mar 21), there are a few hundred concerts in various places... pubs/clubs and a few hundred films, short films, documentaries, etc all over the place. YOu can either go to each place and pay (if you plan to go to only one or two places) or get a wristband for the whole week ($100-$125) and get into as many places as you want through the festival. It's the biggest deal in Austin (the otehr big festivals are Austin City Limits - late Nov or something and the Zilker summer festival.. and Mardi Gras is fun too). Anyways, car rentals are a bomb right now... and hotel bookings are near impossible. Add to the festival the fact that people have spring break and also the weather is beautiful (60-80 deg)... Paplu... THIS is the best time to see Austin. Austin, TX rules!

- 'One flew over the cukoo's nest' was written as one long paragraph in 20 days on a 250 feet long roll of paper!

- Movie Review: Triplets of Belleville : 4/5
Pros: Beautiful animation, got to see some outrageous animation after a series with increasing realism, remarkable attention to detail (there's a joke in every frame), no dialogue - they got the idea through with just visuals, simple story, no preaching, outrageous... great watch!
Cons: Not everybody would agree with me, sometime the jokes are too subtle, no "blow you away" realistic animation, makes a LOT of fun of americans (pro? con? you decide!)

- McAllen, TX (it's on the Mexico - US border) has SO many orange orchards... they smell great. It's supposed to be one of the few places in the US where the weather is tropical enough for orange growth (Florida has the most).

- Spring break parties are good fun... but kinda monotonous if you go every day for a week !!

- Road trips rock!! (back seat driving sucks).

- Layla: EC's gift to mankind.. and I don't mean Mick Foley ! haw haw....

- Was reading about the cadaver scandal at UCLA... apparently a lot of people are worth more dead than alive !! And what's more they're worth a lot more chopped up than whole... what do they say? sum of the parts...
Apparently, thsi company made $23000 on 7 cadavers (which they bought for 7k from Tulane U and sold for 30k to the US army so they could test human body's response to landmine detonations). Hmm... so donating your body to science means a lot more than fresh medicos enhancing their knowledge of the anatomy. You could be chopped up and shipped around the world... where you might be used to test landmine explosions, response to burns, acids - and your fingernails dissolved to see how they react to drugs.
Anyway... all of it still doesn't deter me from willing my body to anyone who wants it after I'm dead... hey! just don't kill me for it!!

- Lots of software people in India seem to be suffering from BOSS - burnout stress syndrome ... and sever depression as a result of odd working hours to sync with people in the US... and a major chunk of the victims seem to be call center employees.

- 0.2% of all births have some intersexual anomaly in them (hermaphrodite to some degree).

- Hippos can't swim very well, or float - they kick off from the bottom of swamps and rivers and glide on that propulsion... well, they DO weigh 3 tons and over.