Now look here, we all know the real reason why cupcakes are so maddeningly popular, don't we ?
By themselves, as delicious as they are, them Cupcakes would never have reached such iconic levels as they do now. For all their yummy-ness, Cupcakes are basically delectable utensils for eating frosting, particularly when it comes to certain cupcake "flavors" like a red velvet. By the way, if you want to know what the hell a "red velvet" is, it's nothing but a really fancy excuse to shamelessly lick a quarter to half-cup full of Cream Cheese Frosting.
For my money, Cream Cheese Frosting, you see, is the best frosting out there till date. And judging by the number of blogs that praise this decadent bit of topping, I'm certainly not in a minority. I have had a lot of Frostings with my decadent eating habits, many different kinds and varieties, but I have fallen head-over-heels in love with the end-all, be-all recipe for the most Decadent Cream Cheese Frosting ever.
Continue reading the full story and the recipe for the most decadent Cream Cheese Frosting ever >>
yours truly, RA
Ah...you finally bought that new printer, didn't you? Feeling pretty good about yourselves, uhu?
With so many advertisements and offers touting those Printers with impressive features and high quality printouts, how could you miss it? And the feel of that sample photo printout the salesman slipped into your hands pretty much made up your mind, didn't it? You just had to buy it, yeah thats what I keep hearing all the time.
Printers have become so much more affordable in recent times, with the cheapest inkjet and laser printers costing just about Rs.1500 and Rs.6000 respectively. That is the picture we see, at least in the beginning. What is obvious, but really known only to a handful few is that you don't spend much of your hard earned money on the actual printer, but on the INK.
A typical inkjet cartridge costs Rs.500 for black & white, and a color cartridge is priced at Rs.750, all for a massive Ink capacity of 8ml. Printer Ink is is the real earner for the dozens of manufacturers putting up their latest models on the market every day.
My Printer's Dirty Secret
That in itself is not that bad. I can live with that, if not for a startling fact. The dirty secret of my printer. I don't know if this is the case with all printers though more than a few of my friends also reported it to be true once I told them about this, but I strongly urge you to check your printer. Well, you can't do jack shit about it, except stop printing and throwing out your printer altogether.
I would definitely not be aware of this dirty little secret of our home printers(or any printer for that matter) if not for this informative video.
The Dirty Little Secret of Inkjet Printers - video powered by Metacafe
Who knew what is going on inside your inkjet printers? Yikes, I for sure did not. A lot of that ink, which costs you three times more per milliliter than a Rs.20,000 bottle of the finest champagne, is pouring down into a sticky well of useless black slime. Holy fuckin' hell, what a waste.
My solution? Stop printing altogether
I came to know that I don't need to make prints, like in ever. If I really need to get a printout, I now go to that Print shop in the next street. I know its not the ideal solution for everybody, but it sure is the ideal solution for over 80% of home users like me. Ditch that piece of overpriced junk and save yourself a shitload of money and stress.
I happened to glance on the above news snippet just a few days back in 'The Hindu'. This assault/robbery attempt on this woman is not particularly new news, and it isn't surprising either. Statistics reveal that a robbery or mugging attempt on an individual takes place once every 5 minutes. And a good 80% of those are carried out when the assailant is armed in some way.
This is the time when my internal light bulb chooses to switch on. This is when I realized how poorly adapted people are when they face such a harmful situation. Such a person, it does not matter if they are male or female, are completely at the mercy of their assailant or perpetrator. They can't do anything because they do not know how to respond. This is a major reason why every person - man, woman or child should learn how to respond appropriately and adapt quickly as and when such a situation presents itself. This is paramount. There are no two ways about it. One cannot always be dependent on others for one's safety, and this includes the good people in our law enforcement agencies. Even they cannot be expected to protect to protect each and every person out there, all the time. We really should learn to defend ourselves, as much as possible, to the best of our abilities.
That is all well and good, but what exactly are you suggesting we do ?
You may ask. Read on, I shall tell you.
Naturally, the first thing one will assume is to learn some kind of fighting technique, and in almost all cases, the spectre of Martial Arts looms large right ahead. We all assume that it is enough if we are trained in a Martial Art discipline to some proficient level. It is natural to have the belief that all will be well and good when we have the confidence that we can throw out a high kick or a punch that Mr.Lee or Mr.Chan would be proud of.
But it is only the first step.
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yours truly,
Ar'Nath
