Inherited brain powers

I hope there's a special place in hell for the people who create computer viruses.

There are some crazy viruses floating around. I don't understand the psyche of those who sit around creating something that would destroy something valuable to someone they don't even know. In my family, we like talking about all the crazy people out there who make us seem sane.

My grandmother loves to talk. On a good day, she’ll ramble off stories about her childhood and life in some small town her father was transferred to where he’d be the local doctor. Life was good in those days, she said. Every Sunday was wash day when they’d be oiled up and scrubbed down. And the house will be full of home made goodies. It’s a rarity to find good home made stuff like munthrikothu, athirasam, kokkoos and stuff. It would be a shame if people stopped making them altogether. They’re painstaking but they are good and wholesome! (I'll try and put up pictures of some of these things)

My grandmother told me a interesting quip – we were discussing how old people need to do something to keep their minds active so that they don’t get bored, depressed or dull. She told me how the old women in town used to mix up bags of rice, lentils and other grains and then sit around the table, chatting and separating them. What a simple and yet effective puzzle when they didn’t have the means to get one of those complex things those people demonstrate at the malls, guaranteed to strengthen your brain power.

Speaking of brain power, she asked me why people speak really loudly on their cell phones in public. Then she came up with a really good explanation. I don't know where she gets them, but she always reads those weird news articles that make people paranoid about everything. She told me that she read somewhere that too much mobile phone usage affects the brain (and I mustn't use it so much), therefore, these people who talk constantly must have had their brain cells die and therefore they get worse when it comes to public etiquette. Is that why they call it a cell phone? Kill your brain cells. Talk more.

One of my grandma's memories is also one that I share because I used to visit them every summer while I was growing up. She recalled the days when we could hear the trains arriving at Chetpet station, the bugles at the police camp and, this was before my time, the mental patients in the mental hospital down the road. My grandmother can be morbid and doesn’t waste her time with political correctness either. That’s probably why it’s fun to hear her speak.

ps - Speaking of brain dead ideas, have you seen the new Idea mobile ads? "Walk while you talk"?? Are they insane? Do they really want the morons here to walk on the roads while talking on their mobiles? I think this must be another one of the population control methods. You know, killing off the idiots one by one using their own stupidity. We have loads of such population control methods here. Like why the roads are never fixed and potholes never covered or helmets and seat belts never enforced. Makes sense doesn't it?