Friendship and DNA

I was listening to CBS Radio news yesterday and I heard something that I found quite amusing. By the way, I was listening to the ever amusing Charles Osgood files.

The topic of discussion was Friendship and DNA.  A study was done (I forget where) and the study determined that the friends you make through out your life have a DNA relationship to you

Here are some examples

• If you have a great sense of humor, the friends you choose will have a similar composition in their DNA
• If you are a nice person, you will be attracted to friends that have a similar nature
• Of course, the opposite also true: You just might become friends with someone that is a total opposite of you. So even here, opposites attract.
• We actively seek out friends that are similar to us in our basic behaviour.

After listening to this and I started to think about my closest friend circle (be it ever so small). Many of my best friends (some of them lifelong friends) have almost identical values and mores as me!

So think about it, what do you look for when you make friends? Even if you don’t know, your DNA composition will make that choice for you!

Have a great day all!

Dad

Deal Sites for NYC Restaurants

As you know two things that Dad loves is a bargain and he loves food. I was reading the daily email from Clark Howard and came across some sites I wanted to share with you.

I’ve used Restaurant.com to get some amazing discounts but you have to check out these sites which offer you discounts in NY, Dallas and some selective markets.

These sites are pretty new and were discussed on Clark Howard’s site:

•  DailyGobble.com – Only in New York and San Francisco at this moment.  Restaurants block off discounts based on specific times of day or days of the week when they need the foot traffic into their restaurants. I especially loved the discounts for Indian Food in NYC. Gives me a reason to go to NYC soon!

• ScoutMob.com – Available in  a dozen or so cities and coming soon to more! What I liked about this site was the simplicity where you don’t pay up front like Groupon and other sites require you to. You only get the savings when you take advantage of one of the offers. I also liked the map based navigation of the cities that the offers are available in.

Of course doing the above does not preclude me from my obsession with using my local Entertainment Book for local food coupons!

Evolution of the Taxi

Over the next few weeks, Dad’s Taxi is going to be evolving.

I’ve already started by changing the content on:

• Indo-Links – Links that interest the South Asian readers
• Links – A Hot links page that contains sites that I have reviewed over the years.
• Fav-Links – Favorite Links that I continue to update almost on a daily basis as I review new sites.

Thanks!

Dad

Fringe – Season Finale

As I write this post, I’m listening to Pandora in the background and I gotta tell you, the music is allowing me to focus more better (I guess). Anyway, I digress from my objective (as usual)

This season of Fringe was absolutely, amazing! I was spellbound by the storytelling and I think hands down, this show has surpassed the X-Files (also from the Fox Network) to be one of the best shows on Television.

Last night’s finale where 2 worlds collide really was outstanding. To see the wormholes, vortexes and the time travel of 20 years into the future with September 11 and terrorism being front center was a masterpiece! Where do I begin? Where will you see this kind of character development and science fiction all rolled up into a ball of thoughtful insights?

Many times, I  have to watch the episodes twice to catch the nuances and implications of each episode.. Maybe I’m thinking too deeply, but growing up, I’ve always been fascinated with the possibility of “alternate Universes” and the unknown. The fact that both universes were “inextricably linked” was mind-boggling. To see Olivia die at the hand of Walternate and be sent out to see, gave me a sense of deja vu of the fate of the most wanted man on earth who now “sleeps with the fishes”.

Every single actor on this show serves a purpose, be in the Fringe universe or in the Walternate universe. The contrast and definitions of the personalities is absolutely riveting to me.

Thank God I have my DVR, so I can watch and re-watch each episode to truly understand the ramifications and the true insightful meanings of each episode.  Every episode gave me the chills, as the storyline was headed to one conclusion –> which was the collision of both universes!

I’m usually pretty astute when I watch television, but I find that I need a cheat sheet to really understand the meaning of each episode. I don’t normally want to buy seasons of a television show, but Fringe will be on my list of “Must Buy” DVD’s.

Ok.. I just realized, I’m way off tangent now.. so I’ll reel myself back in. 🙂

In the last scene, the “watchers” indicated that Peter Bishop never really existed really blew me away, as Peter disappeared right in front of the characters from both universes as they met face to face in Walter Bishop’s laboratory! That scene itself was worth the price of admission. To see both universes in one place and being told that need to co-exist for the sake of each universe,  was just stunning!

The terrorist plot in which 9/11 was  caused by the terrorist “Moreau”, just left me speechless.

Initially, I have to tell you, when I watch Fringe, I felt Peter’s character was an afterthought, but as the seasons progressed, I quickly realized that his character was literally and figuratively the “center” of the story. When Peter finally progressed his relationship with Olivia, it bought for me a sense of deja vu of the intense relationship of Scully and Mulder as their love finally went to the next level of intimacy!

I could go on  and on about Fringe and but let me tell you, watching this quality of show in television, gives me reason to say that there is hope for quality television! Many of the shows that I watch today pander to sexuality (Glee anyone?) as their drawing card and shy away from character development. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of flames from that remark, but hey I call them as I see them.

I just cannot wait for the next season of Fringe when all the characters from both the universes work together to prevent the end of time that has been set in place by wormholes and vortexes that are shown (with amazing details) in both universes.

One thing I do know, Peter’s character doesn’t seem to be part of the picture for next season. Or is he?

Ok.. time for me to go back and watch the season finale and see what I didn’t get the first time!

Dad..

Spam Galore

I was looking at my blog over the past day and was wondering where were all these comments coming from. Being excited that I was even getting like 45 comments in two days, my head was spinning from my own delusions of grandeur that my blog was actually being read by people.

To my chagrin, I’ve been un-spamming many disguised spammers in the form of praise.. Very Bad…

Since I moderate all my comments, I was un-spamming many comments that were obviously veiled SPAM either by botnets or by humans..

So I’ll have to be much more aggressive in my tactics in blocking SPAM. Even the WordPress Support team told me that what Akismet Blocked I was un-spamming and they left me and notice that I have to notify them that I’ve read the spamming rules that Akismet publishes and then they would remove the blurb that they have inserted on my blog site…

Oh well irrational exuberance on getting comments can only get you so far. I guess I should have noticed that the IP addresses of the comments were all the same with different names infused into the comments!

Update: I’ve now gone through all the “comment’s” that I’ve approved and realize that a majority of the comments which I moderated to be non-spam  are truly well disguised SPAM.

Dad..