An Iranian lady at my Yoga class has desperately been trying to lose weight for the last couple of months. So, she walks before class, does a whole lot of Yoga in class and then walks after class too. Judging from how determined she seems to lose weight, I'm sure she's up to a lot more during the rest of the day too.
This morning she was particularly happy about something, noticing which we asked her what her source of joy was. It turned out that she had managed to lose a kg. On hearing this, a rather talkative lady drowned all the Iranian lady's joy in a second by mentioning that today's newspaper featured an article on Adnan Sami who has managed to reduce his weight from 200 kgs all the way down to a 100 odd kgs!!
Considering how difficult it has been for the Iranian lady to lose just a single kg., I can imagine what Adnan must have gone through to lose a 100 (!!) kgs.
An interesting account of Adnan's ordeal here.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Driving Sanjaya out
Aren't you amazed at how Sanjaya Malakar manages to evade being knocked off Amercian Idol in spite of being such a terrible singer?! Every week just when I'm thinking, ok, this is his last, he manages to surprise me and be back for the next show. Now, we all know whats making him stay on. No, its not his pony-tail mohawk or his salon-done eyebrows. I'm pretty sure its the huge Indian community in the US voting to keep him in though I'm not sure why they would do such a thing. I'd be shocked if Indian kids his age, growing up in the US, were voting for him, because he's just too embarrassing a candidate to be supporting.
What irritates me the most about him is that his staying on is depriving other, more worthy, competitors the chance to advance on the show. It reminds me of the 2004 season of American Idol when an average Jasmine Trias got the whole of Hawaii to vote for her thereby knocking out Latoya London who was a strong contender for the title.
I believe that the system of voting on American Idol is flawed if people like Sanjaya and Jasmine are going so far in the competition just because of strong community support. They can only be knocked out in the very final stages of the competition when voting becomes more concentrated towards potential winners. Hence, I have thought of a simple correction to the voting system that is fair and that will nullify the effect of such community support. I propose that instead of people voting for their favourites on the show, they should vote for people they think performed worst. If this were to be applied to the current season, the supporters of all the participants other than Sanjaya would have voted for him thus throwing him out of the show instantly. As for the Indian community, they would have been left confused over who to vote for. No amount of collaboration on their part would be able to save Sanjaya's skin.
What irritates me the most about him is that his staying on is depriving other, more worthy, competitors the chance to advance on the show. It reminds me of the 2004 season of American Idol when an average Jasmine Trias got the whole of Hawaii to vote for her thereby knocking out Latoya London who was a strong contender for the title.
I believe that the system of voting on American Idol is flawed if people like Sanjaya and Jasmine are going so far in the competition just because of strong community support. They can only be knocked out in the very final stages of the competition when voting becomes more concentrated towards potential winners. Hence, I have thought of a simple correction to the voting system that is fair and that will nullify the effect of such community support. I propose that instead of people voting for their favourites on the show, they should vote for people they think performed worst. If this were to be applied to the current season, the supporters of all the participants other than Sanjaya would have voted for him thus throwing him out of the show instantly. As for the Indian community, they would have been left confused over who to vote for. No amount of collaboration on their part would be able to save Sanjaya's skin.
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