Category: Cool…

Monster meteors

I subscribe to quite a few blogs through Google Reader, and one of the blogs (The Tech Observer) offered a link to what it described as “Here’s a must-see picture of a magnitude-20 meteor passing over Croatia last week, in broad daylight!” 

Naturally, I had to follow the link :)

Note: When you click the link above, you will be directed to a Croatian news web site.  Wait a bit for the video of the segment about the meteors to load up (that took about 10 seconds on my connection).  Enjoy.

Postscript: Watching the video (specifically the bits with the meteors), I found myself alternately awed and disturbed.  Here’s the thing: The only times I had seen things like that fly through the air like that in broad daylight like that, people were either running for cover or toward the impact area to survey the damage.

SIR David Attenborough

So, how old do you think that BBC wildlife presenter and enthusiast extraordinaire Sir David Attenborough is? You can take a look at a photo here so you can try to get a better gauge. Go ahead, make a guess.

He is 81 this year. On his 80th birthday, he was in the Galapagos islands, involved in filming giant tortoises, some of which probably aren’t his age.

Sorbet vs. Sherbet

So I’ve been wondering for a long time now: What’s the difference between a sorbet and a sherbet? Did some googling and wikipedia-ing, and here’s what I found out.

Sorbet (pronounced sor-bay) is an iced dessert known for its intense flavours. It does not contain milk or cream.

Sherbet (sure-bert), as a word, has more meanings. For example, in the UK, it can refer to that powdered candy that crackles and pops. But as a dessert, it differs from sorbet only in that it contains milk or other fats. As a result, sherbets are creamy, while sorbets are granular (usually very fine, but still granular).

In any case, I love sorbets. And sherbets.

A day on leave II

So my folks and I were driving along Upper Thomson Road when my sister called from home. Her all-time favourite food in the world is prata and we were just nearing that famous prata place at Casuarina Road. So we immediately asked her if she wanted prata and she of course answered “yes” and so Dad turned left and found a parking lot and I went down to order two prata with egg to go. All very good timing by my sister :)

After watching the prata man do his stuff for a while, I wandered off to the neighbouring shop and saw some packets of KAKA for sale! Haven’t seen KAKA on sale for a long time anywhere, and I just had to buy a few packets. And when I returned to the prata place, I saw one of the Indian servers bring some curry chicken and a plate of white rice to a new customer (it was easy to notice a new customer in the late afternoon; prata places typically make money during the breakfast and supper crowds), and something about this new customer looked familiar. Something was different about his nose. Then he raised his head and started to smile, and sort of stopped when he realised I didn’t recognise him. It was only when I turned away that my mental search popped up with an answer: he was Brian Richmond.

Heh – an interesting day.