Marvin Zindler : RIP

He was a colorful fixture on our local Houston ABC 13 News .
As a champion of the downtrodden, the sick and those
entangled in the red tape of government bureaucracy
his work stands in a class of its own.



'Best Little Whorehouse' reporter, Zindler, dies at 85

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Breaking News:
Marvin Zindler, the flamboyant television consumer
reporter whose crusade against a rural brothel inspired the
play and movie "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,"
died today. He was 85.

Houston Chronicle report here

---

Bollywood Dance Crazies

The Bollywood craze that hit the colleges is something
I mentioned a few months ago.

Brad Miskell from Yahoo Underground is making a neat
attempt at being universally hip and entertaining by serving up
stuff like Get Bollywood, Babli and a fine Flickr slideshow.
Check it out and see if you really need to be hip or already
are.

Join me on Box.net

You've been invited to join Box.net

Here's My Public Box

A Box.net user (frdmilltx(at)yahoo(dot)com) has invited you
to join the Box Network. Box.net is a website that allows you
to securely store files online or send them to others.
That means you won't have to worry about email attachment
limits, portable thumb drives, or hosting files on a website.
By joining this user's network, you'll also be able to send
each other files more easily.
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Life's Inspiration in my Inbox

HOW TO STAY YOUNG ... ...
1.Throw out non-essential numbers.
This includes age, weight, and height.
Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.
2. Keep only cheerful friends.
The whiners and tactless ones pull you down.
(Keep this in mind if you are one of them!)
3. Keep learning:
Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever.
Never let the brain get idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop'
- and the devil's name is Alzheimer's !
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until
you gasp for breath.
And if you have a friend who makes you laugh, spend lots and
lots of time with her/him !
6. The tears happen:
Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us
our entire life, is our self. LIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love:
Whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies,
whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health:
If it is good, preserve it.
If it is unstable, improve it.
If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don't take guilt trips.
Take a trip to the mall, even to a foreign country, but NOT to
where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love, that you love them -
at every opportunity.

And if you don't send this to at least four people - who cares?
But do share this with someone !

405 : The Movie

As hair-raising and sophisticated as any Hollywood
Blockbuster, 405 is a short, funny action-packed little
film that has been praised by CNN, ABC News, and
USA Today. Since it is barely three minutes long any
more info would detract from its initial impact on you,
the viewer.

Choose your Download format:
WMV
Quicktime
MPEG

BLANK NOISE PROJECT: What ?

MIRCHI? SAMOSA? BUTTERFLY? LOLITA?
TAMATAR(TOMATOES)?

What did you just hear?

Send us your list of strange, bizzare, disgusting, funny,
humiliating words that have been used towards you/
your body when you were out on the streets.

Get others around you to recall the same.

email us at blurtblanknoise (at) gmail (dot) com, subject
titled, "excuse me?"

Your email responses will be listed on the blog with
photographic illustrations of the responses. Email us no
later than Aug 3rd. Let's build the 'eve teasing' vocab!

Thank you! Blank Noise Team -- BLANK NOISE WWW.BLANKNOISEPROJECT.BLOGSPOT.COM

Congress Can Do Better

Dear Fred, Last year, I met a farmer from Mali that turned out to be a lot like me. He had the same concerns about yields, lack of rain, production costs and profitability, but as we talked we had one thing in common: a shared concern about the survival of the family farm, in the U.S. and around the world. At long last, Congress looks like they could help us out with that. Last week, in part because of the actions of ONE members, the House Agricultural Committee heard the call for reform and took the first step to changing the Farm Bill for the better and put a cap on payments made to big business farmers. As a farmer in Virginia, I can tell you just how important it is to take yet another big step forward with subsidy reform. Right now the bulk of the subsidies go to gigantic corporate farms, allowing them to sell their crops below cost so that small farmers here and around the world can't compete. Please take a moment to send a letter to your member of Congress and ask him or her to support real reform and justice in America's farm policy. The Farm Bill only comes up for a vote once every 5 years, and it is scheduled for a vote on Thursday. That gives us less than a week to make sure Congress passes a comprehensive package of real reform. A large bipartisan group of legislators have joined together to create the Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment, which would provide many of those desperately needed changes, but they are going to need a ton of support from us in order to pass this ambitious reform package. Please take a moment to tell your member of Congress to do what's best for U.S. small farmers, and the one billion people living in extreme poverty, by voting "yes" for the Fairness Amendment. Your letter to Congress will follow the thousands of letters to the editors of local papers all over the U.S. that ONE members wrote late last week and early this week. These letters are already appearing in papers from the Chicago Tribune to the Tuscaloosa News, and will continue to be published at the same time that the halls of Congress receive your deluge of faxes. That's right, faxes. The folks at ONE want to make sure that Congress gets the message, so they are sending every one of your letters as a fax to your Representative's office. Fax your member of Congress to let them know you support real Farm Bill reform. Please urge your representative to vote for the Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment, which is critical to small family farmers -- like me -- and to farmers in developing countries working hard to earn their way out of poverty. We can win this fight, but we have to take action now. I hope you will continue to keep up the pressure on Congress. You can bet I will. Thank you for joining me in this effort, Leo Tammi, ONE member

ONE.ORG | BLOG | PRIVACY | SUBSCRIBE | UNSUBSCRIBE | CONTACT US | ABOUT

Mobile Phone Tracker via GPS

The technology has secretly been in place for a while now.
It was just a matter of time before the news leaked out onto
the web. Now see how you can track any connected
mobile phone using a satellite map with coverage - anywhere
in the world !

The folks at Sunstar Satellite have issued warnings about the
misuse of this information and insist this is solely for the
entertainment of responsible adults.

Learn more by logging on to www.sat-gps-locate.com

The Virtual Poona Tube

All my YouTube faves in one place for you to enjoy....

Real Age Tips July 23

RealAge Tips of the WEEK

July 23 – July 24, 2007

• I'll Have the Lutein Special You know that ordering the spinach salad for lunch will boost your intake of sight-saving lutein. But there's a trendy breakfast source . . . Read more. • The New Mental Pick-Me-Up Mentally challenging tasks require you to be "on." When your brain is stuck on "off," here's what to do: Skip the trip to the . . . Read more. • Head Off Eating Issues Early What do picky eaters and fast eaters have in common? Both groups of kids may be at risk for suffering . . . Read more. • Pop, crack, crunch. Are your joints singing the osteoarthritis tune? • Does exercise give you heartburn? Looking for the safest, most effective pain reliever? Visit the RealAge First Aid Center.

Load Free Games has Flash Games Galore

Sharing two unusual (for me) Games since I'm not
a skilled Gamer by any means. These games are so
neatly put together however, that I intend to try as
many as I can even if my scores remain in the loser
category....just for fun.

**Coolio DJ

**Leap of Faith

Get more free and exciting games here

One.Org and Texans in the House

click to enlarge

There are two Texans in the House on the Hill -
and in my mailbox
Above, a letter I received a few days ago from
Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senator (R) from Texas currently
serving in the White House. Briefly, she offers her continued
concern and support on the human rights issues of women and
children, something I had asked her to address in May of this
year.

Around the same time in May Senator John Cornyn (R)
also of Texas, expressed his personal concern for the future of
internet radio, which faces extinction due to huge royalty fees.
Link to earlier post here

Thanks to the One.Org movement (that I am now a small part of
via this Blog) important issues are being brought to the doors
of the Senate in Washington, DC. Will the ONE campaign succeed
in its humanitarian attempts or are they just being used to fuel
the year 2010 aspirations of these Texans ? I'm not qualified to
answer that but it feels good to know that 'the campaign to make
poverty history' is gaining momentum by even small efforts like
mine.

Friendswood, Texas USA : I'm Home

Looks like I'm not living in too sleepy a town after all.
Friendswood provided a stark contrast from my old domicile
in North Bergen, New Jersey which is just across the river
from Manhattan, New York. When I first moved here in 1996
it was all peace and quiet with a few green spots to break up
the flat, dry Texan landscape. Since then it has blossomed into
a city with a definite identity by retaining a fair amount of its
small-town ambiance, enough to qualify as Number 51 on
CNN and Money magazine's Top 100 places to live in the USA.

Friendswood, Texas

Population: 31,500
Median home price (2006): $254,999
Average property taxes (2005): $1,958

** Once a Quaker Colony, Friendswood underwent its largest
makeover when young Houston families began relocating to
the city in the 1950's (then, with a population of 1,000).
Thanks to a Mayberry Effect that continued throughout the
decades, Friendswood is now home to over 31,500 people.
This affluent town enjoys year-round subtropical weather and
access to jobs, shopping and entertainment in nearby
Houston. -I.T.
** info from

The official Friendswood city site still reclines leisurely
in lo-tech, laid-back mode......

Strange Friendswood building by Texas standards on Flickr

See complete data and interactive map for Friendswood

Find homes for sale in Friendswood

Somewhat outdated Friendswood facts here

Poora Poona :The new ISSUE is OUT

Poora Poona' - Pune's First Youth Magazine

In this issue : (July 15th 2007)

- PHONE POWER - Using the Phone just right to do business.

- ANGLING - Just Right!

- Find some exciting job opportunities for yourself in
Naukree Shauk Kee section; powered by Naukri.com'.

- Soaring High

- "Research is the Key to select the right B School abroad" -
Matt Symonds, Co-Founder of QS World MBA Tour, talks
about applying to B Schools out of India.

plus ...

FUNDOO FACT | QUIZ | HUMOUR | CAREER | AND ALL
THAT MATTERS...
---------------------------------------------
News stand Price: Rs 3/- only!

If you are in Pune, contact us to know how to get your
own copy.

For more information, visit www.poorapoona.com

Also visit www.poorapoona.com to have all your queries
answered by the collective wisdom of Internet -

Powered by Rediff.com'

Poora Poona is Pune's First youth magazine , which is
published, printed and distributed in Pune.

Crazy Indian Father

Here's an Indian kid in Canada having fun/making fun
of Indian fathers. Made me laugh aloud, and that's not an
easy thing to do !

Bus-ted

Germany's Bild newspaper yesterday interviewed a lady
named 'Debora C.' in connection with her being asked
to get off a commuter bus in Landau. She says she was
just too sexy for her bus (driver) : too much cleavage
popping into the driver's rear-view mirror was making
his eyes pop out, thereby creating a hazard for passengers.
His bosses say he did the right thing....

Coverage (coincidental pun) from Deutsche Welle here

Nursing Home Alternative

Funny look at alternative Nursing Home for Seniors....
PowerPoint file from my collection at :
http://www.box.net/shared/xo5fyp9f2n

Box.net is the easiest way to share documents, photos,
and files online. Learn more by visiting www.box.net

Silence - from Blank Noise Project

Jasmeen from the Blank Noise Project said :
Nupur Mathur participated in Blank Noise in 2003,
when the project had just started. She along with eight
other students of Srishti School of Art Design and
Technology were participants of workshops I facilitated
over 3 months. At that time I was graduating and Nupur
was in her first year.


Read the story of the film here :
BLANK NOISE PROJECT:
Silence- short film by Nupur Mathur

Man vs Woman

He said : I don't know why you wear a bra - you've got nothing

to put in it.
She said : You wear pants, don't you?

He said : Shall we try swapping positions tonight?
She said : That's a good idea - you stand by the ironing
board while I sit on the sofa

click on pic below to activate these men :.

He said : What have you been doing with all the grocery
money I gave you?
She said :Turn sideways and look in the mirror!

On the wall in a ladies room : "My husband follows me everywhere"
Written just below it : " I do not"

Q. How many honest, intelligent, caring men in the world does it
take to do the dishes?
A. Both of them.

Q. How does a man show that he is planning for the future?
A. He buys two cases of beer .

Q. What is the difference between men and government bonds?
A. The bonds mature.

Q. Why are blonde jokes so short?
A So men can remember them.

Q How many men does it take to change a roll of toilet paper?
A. We don't know; it has never happened.

Q. What do you call a woman who knows where her husband
is every night?
A. A widow.

Q. Why are married women heavier than single women?
A. Single women come home, see what's in the fridge and go
to bed. Married women come home, see what's in bed and go
to the fridge.

Man says to God: "God, why did you make Woman so beautiful?"
God says: "So you would love her."
But God," says Man, "why did you make her so dumb?"
God says: "So she would love you."

n7w Results

So the New Seven Wonders of the World have been
chosen and unveiled and even though I didn't vote, if I
had voted, my picks would have won - well almost... **

Here they are, in no particular order :

The Great Wall of China

Rome's Colosseum

India's Taj Mahal

Peru's Machu Picchu,

Brazil's Statue of Christ the Redeemer

Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid

Jordan's Petra was the seventh winner and
**the only one I didn't pick because I figured
Egypt's Pyramids of Giza were a shoo-in. Anyway,
they will still retain their status as a wonder to me, along
with The Acropolis and The Parthenon, because that's
what I was taught to appreciate as wonderful when I was a
schoolboy.

Yahoo slideshow here

Seven Blunders of the World

Tomorrow they'll finish voting for the new 7 Wonders of
the World, a.k.a. n7w. I won't be voting because the whole
process seems questionable given the nature of online
voting which must include participation of Hackerz,
Spammerz, Spiders, lots of Bots and what-nots.
It's a Wonderful World !

The Seven Blunders of the World is a list that
Mahatma Gandhi gave to his grandson Arun Gandhi
during his last days. The seven blunders are:

Wealth without work

Pleasure without conscience

Knowledge without character

Commerce without morality

Science without humanity

Worship without sacrifice

Politics without principle

No comments necessary here. The Mahatma said it all.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Soundsnap Rocks !

What is Soundsnap?
'Soundsnap is the best platform to find and share free sound
effects and loops- legally. It is a collection of original sounds
made or recorded by its users, and not songs or sound FX
found on commercial libraries or sample CD's.'
Visit Soundsnap at http://www.soundsnap.com/


Tags > India (944)
The link labeled 'India' above will take you to some Indian
audio samples consisting of Tabla, Dholak, Bhangra beats and
various Indian Groove loops that you can use as background
sounds for your multi-media projects.

Click below for some of the other popular sounds they have
neatly tagged and available in mp3, wav and aiff formats :
120 bpm alien Ambient analog bass birds C car chord
computer door drop drum drumloop E electric guitar electro
electronic electronica female forest Fx guitar hit human
IDM impact India loop male Metal nature percussion
percussive piano rhodes riff Rock Sci-Fi space fx Synth voice
Water weapon wood

In the meantime, just for fun....
Here's a funny NSFW (as in Not Safe For Work) MP3
called the Marriage Race Track :
http://www.box.net/shared/hakr21teyx
Box.net is the easiest way to share documents, photos,
and files online. Learn more by visiting www.box.net

Funny Lady : Vijai Nathan

Once there was a talented and funny lady named Vijai Nathan
doing Stand-up comedy and knocking them out internationally.
There still is, but I just never knew about her until I came across
this video via Google. Here's a quote from an interview with
India Abroad weekly : "Any time I asked my mom about sex,
she'd freak out. 'Vijai you don't need to know that. Its only for
Americans.' And my parents were always worried that I was
becoming too American. My Dad would say: 'So you want to wear
pants, eat cows, have minty fresh breath. That's it, you're going
back to India."

Much like the raunchy and incomparable Margaret Cho, she finds a
wealth of untapped humor in the everyday life of her Asian family,
and in her personal challenges as an American-born female of Indian
descent.

Official site : http://www.vijaicomedy.com/about.html

In this video entitled 'Chai Noon' : Two Indian mothers battle it out
over who has the better daughter and only one is left standing....

A Living Godess in DC

Saw these photos on Flickr and thought you might like them.
They're in a set by Andy Carvin called
Kumari: Living Goddesses of Nepal

Andy's description :

About the set
21 photos | 2,993 views

In Nepal, there are a small number of girls revered as living
goddesses, or Kumaris. They are selected as toddlers and
retain their status as goddesses until they reach puberty.
I was fortunate to meet one of them- Sajani Shakya, the
Kumari of Bhaktapur. She visited Silver Spring, MD to see
the world premiere of a documentary about Kumaris at the
Silverdocs festival. It's the first time a Kumari has ever
visited the United States.

More about her visit, and a short video, are available on
Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth Blog.

A selection of photos from the set

This just in......the surprising follow-up to the above
story is here

Flickr is almost certainly the best photo management and
sharing application in the world. If you'd like to see what I
use it for you can check out my profile page or browse my photos.

Inappropriate Yoga Guy

If I post another YouTube link here, it had better be good.
Horn OK Please is better than good, it's a masterpiece !

The one below is good and funny :

'Amby' - India's Oldest Ambassador

Modeled after the early compact British Morris Minor
this Morris 'Major' has already outlived all the elected
Indian Ambassadors to the United Nations. Not much
has changed about it since 1957 when it first appeared
on the market, and today's LA Times has devoted a
good amount of space to examine the Ambassador in
an article called India's Ugly Icon of the Road.

As dismayed as I was by his unflattering portrayal of
the 'Amby' I had to agree with reporter Henry Chu, but
only after I stumbled upon an old bookmark about a real
Classic in the making - the Bugatti Veyron.
Here's where Auto and Web design intersect in an interactive,
animated, slick promo full of eye candy for car enthusiasts.
You get a 360-degree view of your Bugatti while you pick the
color from an extensive palette with two-tone options.
You have to explore this marvelous piece of web design if
only to view/download the hi-res Wallpapers like this :

click to enlarge/save

Link to the Bugatti Veyron site

Now, which would you prefer ?

Female Astronauts

Once again, two very different female astronauts,
setting two different records straight.

Indian-American female Astronaut Sunita 'Willeums'
returned safely to Earth much to the relief of her little
Muslim supporters in India.

Sunita Williams now holds the new record for the longest
single Space flight by a female. Yahoo slideshow here
and my feelings here : You glow, Girl !

Meanwhile back on Earth, the latest Lisa Nowak
update says her lawyer set the record straight on the
diapers found in her posession when she was arrested :
She wasn't wearing diapers. There were no Adult diapers.
There were some leftover baby diapers from when the family
had to evacuate during Hurricane Rita two years ago.
Link to AP/MSNBC coverage here and my apologies to all
for the inaccuracy in reporting here : Sorry !