The Spirit of Dentures
Starring: Kevin Spacey
My brother shared this with me and my wife the other day – mainly because my wife is a dentist and that she’d find this funny.
She won’t take pirates for patients though.
I wish I could have taken you home, but … but … :’(
A lone piano stands curbside in New York City, and a short documentary chronicles the interactions of passers-by as the piano awaits its fate.
A Film by Anthony Sherin
Related New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/opinion/solo-piano-nyc.html
Indian Cookery – By Ronnie Barker
Original Show: The Two Ronnies (1985)
Cast: Ronnie Barker & Ronnie Corbett
Watch it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V1kqusd-zk
I lost it when he began to list the names of the spices on the plate. Indian cooking can actually be this complicated and it is so true.
Or you can throw in a ready-made spice mix available at any Indian foods store. I recommend anything by Shan. If you can’t find it, Mehran is also equally good.
Ronnie Barker was a legend. He was brilliant with the English language. It’s not easy pull off an Indian stereotype so convincingly.
Here is a list of dishes with links to their (real) recipes mentioned in the sketch:
- Papadum – A thin,crisp and spicy wafer that is either deep fried or roasted. At the store, look for the Lijjat Brand of Papad
For a healthier preparation – Microwave a single papad on High for 60 to 90 seconds - Curried Okra with Chickpeas – For the RichardMahatmaAttenboroughGandhi version, throw in a pound of Ham.
- Pilau Rice: A fragrant rice dish where saffron or turmeric is especially added to give the rice a yellow colour. It can be as easy as you like to prepare or as difficult if you choose to. An easy recipe can be found here at BBC-Food.
A more tastier but challenging recipe is this video on VideoJug. - Cucumber-Raita – If you noticed a cucumber in place of a telephone receiver which was dipped in yoghurt, there was indeed a connection.
Raita is simple dip made made by blending yoghurt & cucumber. Add salt, cumin, cilantro and jalapeño to taste. Here is a great video to help you get started. - Tandoori Chicken – There is no one recipe that I can point you to as there are hundreds of variations. In brief, it is grilled chicken that is marinated with yoghurt, spices and red-colouring to give its distinct flavour and bright red colour.
The easiest way to make the marinade for Tandoori Chicken is get your hands on a ready-made Tandoori spice mix like Shaan Tandoori Masala. Blend it with yoghurt et voila ! Marinate the chicken with that for 8 to 24 hours in the fridge. BBQ when ready.
Squeeze a few drops of lemon when serving.
- Cheers !
What if money … was no objection ?
How would you really spend your life – if you stopped worrying about getting up in the morning to earn money ?
Watch it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L_cGjQSR80
Because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time! You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing, in order to go on living; that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing! Which is stupid!
– Alan Watts
When children retell family stories
Note: The YouTube player is an embedded playlist of 6 videos:
“And then he went to the park and then he went to the door and then he go potty. The End.”
“haaaaaaah I don’t have any monney haaaaah I dooon’t…”
“I don’t see anything ?”
“There’s twenty dollar bills”
“Ok I see gold (・_・) ”
“That’s fake gold take the fake gold…”
Hahaha !
Adults acting out and lip synching children never gets old for me ! These guys however are brilliant !
I have been re-playing these videos all week and there is more if you check out BoredShortsTV Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/BoredShortsTV
The History of Television
Mario (Red Guy) and Fafa (Ground Hog) sing to us about the glorious years of TV.
Produced by: Glove & Boots
Watch it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyYo3Hm6pS4
So many awesome shows ! My head is a mess now ! What were you favourites ?
(Re)Subscribe to ManiaRavings.com by E-mail
In a recent post, I talked about the buzz that Feedburner was shutting down.
Feedburner’s most useful feature was to have readers subscribe to a blog via e-mail.
With its imminent closing however, it is only wise to be prepared and seek out alternatives.
I am going with MailChimp. It’s a familiar brand and has lots of flexibility in fine tuning your e-mail delivery and templates.
It is free as long as you have less than 2000 subscribers and send under 12000 e-mails a month.
Some math is involved. If you have 100 e-mail subscribers and you post 12 times a month, therefore you are sending out 100 × 12 = 1200 e-mails a month.
You can (stealthily) import your contacts from an excel file or even a myriad of other services like Gmail and your Address Book on your Mac.
To transfer your FeedBurner subscribers, first ‘Export to CSV’ from the Subscription Management area on FeedBurner and then upload that file to MailChimp.
One catch is that MailChimp requires you to display your physical mailing address at the bottom of e-mails citing it as “International Law”. You can choose not to display it – if you you are not afraid of a troll-lawyer who will send you to court over this.
You may also end up spending hours fine tuning the template for your subscription form as well as the e-mail template.
If these features make you turn the other way, and rightly so, there are other options too. I found one called nouri.sh which is I think dead simple. It allows you 1000 subscribers and unlimited e-mails for free. The subscription form is plain HTML however, so you may need to work a bit to dress it up. But give it a try at http://nouri.sh and see if it works for you.
Anyway, as far as I am concerned, if you feel that my posts are deserving of valuable space in your inbox, please submit your information below.
If you are having trouble with the form below, fill out another one at http://eepurl.com/pWsF5
Thank You so much for sticking with me !
Heartbeat
Artist: JJAMZ
Album: Suicide Pact
Watch it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0okSCBqw18
I heard this song for the first time yesterday – and I have been humming it all day today. So, I am blogging about it.
The song recently surged in popularity as MySpace used it in its promotional video for a “New MySpace”.
So here it is, one more time -
Watch it on Vimeo at http://vimeo.com/50071857
PS. Find me on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/jaffer.maniar
Feedburner is shutting down
Dear Friends,
This will have come as a surprise to you as much as it did me, that there are statements being made, of Feedburner shutting down on October 20, 2012.
I was quite unaware of this matter until today when our good friend, Unfinished Person talked about it on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unfinishedperson/posts/356320424454582
A simple Google search will tell you that the blogosphere has been abuzz for more than a few weeks with news of this unanticipated quietus: https://www.google.ca/search?q=feedburner+shutting
One comprehensive, albeit biased coverage about this story is found at FeedBlitz: http://www.feedblitz.com/feedburner-shut-down-the-facts-and-tales-from-the-front-line/
Feedburner was a popular instrument of egotism that displayed the number of subscribers to a blog on any given day. But its most useful feature I believe was e-mail subscription.
I do not know of any viable alternatives to Feedburner, except those that can be found at: http://alternativeto.net/software/feedburner/
The least we can do, however is to point our readers to our original feed address – the one that is built in with out blogging platform such as:
http://maniaravings.com/feed/atom
Please be so kind as to add this url into your RSS Reader to subscribe to me.
Thank You.
The Worst Test
Produced by: Skule Nite www.skulenite.ca
I hated university engineering tests and exams. They made you think while you had no time to think. That’s why I failed university – twice.
Technical college exams however, were a breeze – they were straight forward and they tested you on what you are already expected to know. That’s why I aced college – twice.
About Skule Nite
Skule Nite is a musical-comedy sketch show run entirely by Engineering students at the University of Toronto. It is a professional-level production done entirely by volunteers. It was put together way back in 1920 to entertain students and faculty with short skits and musical ensembles at social events.
Skule is the name and registered trademark of the University of Toronto’s Engineering Society.
Information taken from SkulePedia http://skulepedia.ca/wiki/Skule_Nite