Mr. Weatherhog forecasts long winter

2nd of February which is the Christian holiday of Candlemas, is also popularly known as the Groundhog Day. It is believed that today when a groundhog emerges from its burrow, if it sees its shadow, then winter is going to be long and will continue for 6 more weeks. On the other hand, if it does not see its shadow, the winter will be short and spring is around the corner.

This year's star groundhog is a furry big little thing called Punxsutawney Phil hailing from a small town of Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania. Today when Phil emerged from his burrow after a long and cozy hibernation, he cast a shadow (since the day is bright today) and forecasted a long dreary winter.

So, as per our tiny little weatherman, I still have chance to wear some of the jackets that have remained untouched this entire winter!

Only in America

During our Christmas gift shopping spree, we went to this one store and got a couple of items, one for $10 and another for $25. We used a $10 off $25 coupon and with taxes, we got both the items for a total for $26.48.

Turns out, we ended up not gifting the $25 item to anyone. And since we ourselves didn't have any particular use of it, we decided to return it.

So, a few days ago I went back to the store to return it....and guess what, with taxes I got a refund of $26.49. That's 1c more than what we paid for! The $10 item we had got was completely free! The girl at the counter did realize something was wrong, but she couldn't do anything about it.

This can happen only in America!

New girl on the block

After watching the well deserved sweeping win of Slumdog Millionaire at the Golden Globe, I have been extremely impressed with - not Dev Patel, not Danny Boyle, not even A R Rahman - but with Freida Pinto, the girl who plays the character of adult Latika, the love interest in the movie.

While watching the movie, I was more engrossed in the amazing direction and awesome acting by the child artists - and so failed to notice her as anything more than a "regular" actor. But when I saw her on the stage with Shah Rukh Khan at the Golden Globe awards, I was struck by her confidence and her ability to hold herself alongside SRK.

Since then we have been scouring YouTube to catch what we can about her and the movie. And while at it, we came to know that these two young debutantes, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto - have appeared in a number of television interviews in the US. And as we watched her interviews in various award ceremonies and TV shows, my admiration for her grew. Just see how well she handles herself with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. Compared to much experienced Aishwarya's appearances on network television in the US and the difference is obvious. Freida is poised and confident, knows how to talk well and her command of the English language shows.

At this point, I would have linked to the You Tube video of Freida's appearance on The Tonight Show. But unfortunately, the video's been removed from YouTube by NBC due to copyright reasons.

No wonder that one of the top agencies in Hollywood, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) that represents the likes of Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kate Winslet, to name a few, has signed her up. The girl's gonna go places! Watch this space.