Licensing woes

All I want is a birthday cake for Aditi, with a picture of Tom and Jerry iced on it. Apparently, according to 5 different cake joints that I called or mailed in the last two days, one needs a license for that. License for what? License to draw Tom and Jerry on a birthday cake. Apparently it would lead to copyright infringement.

For the love of God, this is a cake meant for a two year old's birthday party. What the hell is the copyright all about? The cake is going be history less than five minutes after being brought to the table. After the first few satisfied burps, no one is going to care whether they ate Tom or Jerry. This explanation didn't satisfy one persistent salesperson. He said he had a license for Sylvester and Tweety! Aditi doesn't know those dudes, so I (not so politely) declined. I guess the only other character she knows (and who's licensed locally) is Winnie the Pooh. But she had Pooh-bear on her birthday cake last year too.

As I was looking through what few pictures I have form Aditi's first Birthday party, I realized that her cake last year too had the copyright C in a circle followed by Disney thingie. And 'Happy Birthday Aditi' was relegated to an unimportant corner of the cake board! It was Aditi's b'day cake, dashit... not Disney's! And the colours on the sign were all wrong too.

I am still on the lookout for a Tom and Jerry cake. Anyone knows who's got the relevant license?

Death by... Dum???

I have evolved. Things have changed around me, things are changing around me, things will always change around me. I resisted change. I stuck to what I thought was the best, most sublime, and supremely comforting food... Death By Chocolate from good old Cornerhouse on Residency Road!

The best comfort food, henceforth, is ... (drumrolls)... the utterly delicious dum Biriyani made by Nayeem. Overate one of his really awesome creations yesterday, but am in a state of utter bliss.

Nayeem's creations have officially become #1 food for the heart, soul, and the belly too. Go Nayeem!

Why didn't I get a doggy bag... Damn!

Don't you dare stop!

I had a rather enlightening conversation with Axe about his vehement objections to tourists in New York. Yes, I understand how this can be a problem.

Axe, apparently, doesn't like to go to Times Square, because "that place is full of tourists!" How dare they!! And what do they do? They stop suddenly as they are walking around the place! Imagine that... How dare they interrupt a "cynical, wannabe New Yorker"! Up in arms, I say!

Any lawyers out there want to take this up??

Kid stuff

As you all know, Arun has been giving public the finger for about 2 weeks now thanks to a cricket injury. But for the last week, the middle finger in question is sporting a vivid yellow band-aid with assorted cartoon characters. A cat playing tennis, a Hippo in a Speedo (shudder), among others.

Why? Very simple. The kiddie band-aid is the only one that sits snug on the injured middle finger.

And what does Aditi say about her daddy dearest wearing her band-aids? She's ok with it, as long as she too has one. So if you see Aditi sporting a band-aid, she's just copying her daddy darling. Don't waste any sympathy there. She isn't hurt at all.

Lots n lots of pics.

Took a post out of Denti's blog, and just made a BIG collage of lots of pics that I thought were worth sharing.

These are pics taken at home, and at Boat Quay.



These are a result of a few hours of joblessness. These are the views out of one of our 19th floor windows. You can see the Clementi Stadium, the West Coast Recreation centre, and the sea very far away.


Enjoy!

Is Rowling losing it?

I booked my copy over 2 months ago, and it was delivered to me at 8am. Needless to say, I put speed reading to the test and finished reading it before the evening set in. And I was really pissed off. 600 odd pages, and the story really doesn't go anywhere! Six hundred odd pages, just to pull the plot all over the place and still not go anywhere!

Spoiler Warning!
(Don't read any further if you haven't read the book yet or if you plan to do so in the near future!)

So what happens in six hundred odd pages of the 'Half Blood Prince'? Dumbledore is looking for hidden bits of Lord Voldemort's soul, which is what helps him stay alive. He finds one, but has a terrible mishap in the process. He returns to Hogwarts so he can ask Snape for help. Snape turns out the be the half-blood Prince, and helps Draco Malfoy kill Albus Dumbledore. All this happens only in the last 150 odd pages!

And turns out, Dumbledore died for nothing. The soul thingie wasn't there after all. And there's this note from 'R.A.B.' informing Lord Voldemort that he has the thingie.

If you really want to read the spoiler, highlight the blank space above.

Speculation
So anyone wanna bet that Harry is going to find the Horcrux at 12 Grimmauld place? RAB could be the initials of Regulus Black, Sirius' brother.

Bedtime reading

• "Let me tell you one vairy funny story about putting. It was one day I play at Nijni-Novgorod with the pro, against Lenin and Trotsky, and Trotsky had a two-inch putt for the hole. But, just as he addresses the ball, someone in the crowd he tries to assassinate Lenin with a rewolwer--you know that is our great national sport, trying to assassinate Lenin with rewolwers--and the bang puts Trotsky off his stroke and he goes five yards past the hole, and then Lenin, who is rather shaken, you understand, he misses again himself, and we win the hole and match and I clean up three hundred and ninety-six thousand roubles, or fifteen shillings in your money. Some gameovitch! And now let me tell you one other vairy funny story----"

'Huh', you say? 'What the...?' you think? Wait, and it shall all be explained. It is a parent's duty to develop their child's mind with good literature. And Arun is doing just that with Aditi. That is an excerpt from 'The Clicking of Cuthbert' from PG Wodehouse's Wodehouse on Golf. Arun is reading that aloud to Aditi at bedtime! Even as I blog, Aditi is listening with rapt attention to the words of the master, and makes a sound of protest when daddy dearest pauses for breath.

And just how did daddy dearest decide on Wodehouse? He has his objections to the standard repertoire of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. So he decided that bedtime reading should be happy reading and just picked up the first Wodehouse he got his hands on and started reading to Aditi about Cuthbert Banks' misadventures!

I'm off now... I want to find out how whether Cuthbert Banks clicked or not..

The Little Mermaid (other title: Fish and lobsters in tights)

That should give you a clue. This is all about the ballet. I finally dragged Arun to a ballet, to what I thought was a particularly enjoyable production of The Little Mermaid. But I might not take Arun along to a ballet again. He kept up with a running commentary through the entire show!

I think Arun is the only person I know who was not aware that the Little Mermaid was a tragedy! He was so appalled when I told him that the little mermaid didn't "live happliy ever after". He apparently thought that Disney had the right storyline... happy endings and all that.

Add to that 3 extremely embarrassed schoolboys whose mom thought this was a fine opportunity to introduce them to the finer points of art and culture. M sure had the right idea, but somehow I thought her kids weren't quite ready for ballet as a part of their culture build-up. First of all they were very embarrassed to be seen at a place where there were 'girls'. The youngest, an out-of-the-box-thinker if ever there was one, apparently said that if there were other schoolboys there, their mothers too probably didn't give them a choice. I discovered that they would rather be dead than have their classmates ever find out that their mom had taken them to a ballet. So what if it was an open-air outdoor type of event....

The 3 kids and Arun seemed to have one major objection... that the male dancers wore tights. I dare them to try a grand jete or a split in their jeans! So with all the males in our group having decided not to like the show, M and I decided to enjoy it anyway.

The costumes were very colourful. The choreography was great too. I enjoyed every moment of the show. Next time there's a good production in town, M and I are NOT taking our husbands and/or kids along.

We are not embarrassed to be seen at a ballet anyway!

What's happening in Singy?

With all the fanfare going on about the One Hundred and X-th (105 or 106th) IOC session in Singapore the man on the street might be forgiven for assuming that Singapore was hosting the 2005 Olympics! I've had it with front page coverage of the IOC sessions in the local rag, The Straits Times! This doesn't define earth shaking news by any standards! It's five OTHER cities fighting to host the 2012 (?) Olympics, but you wouldn't know that here in Singapore.

And David %^&##@ Beckham! Yesterday we saw his mug on the front page of the local rag, and instantly consigned that edition to lining cupboards and shelves. Nothing else can guarantee to curdle my breakfast cuppa quite like that annoying mug. On the front page too! He's backing London's bid, for God's sake. Not running for president! Not of Singapore certainly.

And the telly is covering the IOC session live.... who the &%$* cares!!!!! Singyis still NOT hosting the OLYMPICS!

I'll be glad when this is over and the newspapers get back to covering who lost who's marbles in what dark corner of whose HDB flat.

I wonder what would happen if Singy did get to host the games though? It would serve for frontpage headlines for years before, after and during the event! Maybe even forever

Back from whatever

To all (less than five) of those who actually read this blog, I haven't been able to blog for a week now thanks to a very bad attack of influenza! And all 3 of us were hit pretty bad. And I still dont weigh any less :(

Fortunately, we are all much better this week. I don't think I can go through that again! Aditi, of course, is off solids again. Her throat is still not fully ok. So please folks, give me suggestions for nice food that might tempt her to eat. Suggestions including recipes would be better. I am at my wits' end!