Uniqlo-ed

I was doing my annual closet cleaning yesterday and it suddenly dawned on me that I have slowly and steadily Uniqlo-ed my wardrobe!

For those of you who do not know, Uniqlo is this Japanese fast-fashion brand. And like everything else I know of Japan, it is of awesome quality, unique (and surprisingly affordable). What began as a liking for their casual clothes, now has become an obsession, and I am pretty much dressed from head to toe by just one brand. Tch tch.So from casual shirts, T-shirts, Formal shirts, trousers, jeans, shorts, gym apparel, undergarments, winter clothes to socks, I can now just pop into 1 store and buy my entire wardrobe. Wow! So much for not being brand conscious!

Now, since this ain't a paid endorsement, I won't recommend you to try the brand yourself. But well, if you have been shying away, may be you should drop by a store today.

Amazing Transformation

YouTube recommended me this video yesterday of Aamir Khan going through an amazing body transformation for his new movie Dangal. It is amazing to watch a fat middle-aged Aamir turn into a fit young Aamir in a matter of 5 minutes (well, okay the actual timeline is 5 months).

It's amazing, inspiring, and to be honest - near impossible unless you got absolute discipline, self-control and a whole lot of time and money. I feel it's inspiring for people who have been struggling with their weight for decades (yours truly). So here it is in all it's glory:

This transformation reminds me of the two greatest movie transformations that I have seen in my lifetime. First is Tom Hanks - in Cast Away. He managed to loose almost 23 kgs for his before and after in Cast Away. It was jaw dropping to see him that way in the movie!

Then, what I consider as the craziest set of body transformations yet - Christian Bale. He has been pushing his body to the limit of craziness by going through gains and losses for several of his movies.
I would recommend you see his transformations here.

In short he went from 83 kg (2002) - 55 kg (2004) - 86 kg (2005) - 61 kg (2006) - 86 kg (2008) - 66 kg (2010) - 108 kg (2013). I can't even imagine how he could do it for all his roles and such a short span of time!

Anyway, for minions like you and me. It's just a gentle reminder that anything is possible. And yeah - proper diet is more important than just doing regular workouts!

Mochi

This is a very special post for me. Mainly for 2 reasons.

1. This happens to be my 400th blog post. Yeah. Persistence.
2. A friend of mine just came back from Japan and got us a big box of Mochi. I managed to finish half of it in a matter of 2 hours. Now I am delighted, contended and have a sugar high as I write this post

So to celebrate this momentous occasion (and my sugar high) I shall write about this amazing Japanese sweet that I have been eating for the last 2 hours. So what exactly is mochi? It's a rice cake made out of glutinous rice pounded into a paste and molded into a shape with a sweet paste filling inside it. The variety that I just ate had a matcha filling (Japanese Green Tea).

Now like everything else Japanese I have talked about here before (Ronin, Ramen, Fine Dining,  Wasabi, Pocari Sweat , Poke-Yoke, Umbrellas, etc.) this innocuous looking dessert has an astonishing way of making it. The glutinous rice is actually pounded using a Wooden mallet and someone's hand in an alternate rhythm! And if that doesn't sound dangerous enough, I recommend you watch the video below. Mind you, it's his actual speed, the video speed hasn't been increased:

Now I know this is in no way a lethal food like the Fugu. While eating the Fugu, you are trusting the chef with your life (literally). To quote Wikipedia verbatim about Fugu, it says:

Fugu poison is 1200 times stronger than cyanide, and there is no known antidote.

 Wow. So much for satisfying your taste buds (a few seconds of pleasure?)

Anyway, coming back to my main topic of Mochi, I understand that these days many Mochis are prepared by industrial machines pounding the glutinous rice, and not many chefs risk their hands to make the perfect Mochi. However, I still think of all the effort people put in to make the "perfect" food, just so that someone somewhere can fest on a box of finger licking good Mochis and write a blog!

Reddit - read better news!

Facebook is now the world's biggest media house just because of it's sheer power of distributing news across the globe than any other media company. Most of the world consumes its news (real or otherwise) from Facebook.

While I have also consumed news on Facebook, in the recent past I have actively stayed away from Facebook for a while to not let all the negativity affect me. I still use Feedly as my feed reader (after the Google Reader fiasco) to read my favorite bloggers and websites.

I have also been heavily reliant on Reddit to get my crowd-sourced news especially for the "breaking" stuff and to follow the news topics that I like. So I thought, I let you guys know about Reddit, if you have already not heard of it.

Reddit is like a community sourced news portal, where you have people voting for the articles and news that they like. Eventually the most voted news/ articles make it to the top of the front page which keeps changing all the while. Besides, Reddit also has these various "sub-reddits" where you can follow a community curated topic of your choice. So what on Reddit do I follow and I recommend?

Here are a few of my favorite sub-reddits that I recommend:

LifeProTips - Small quirky tips for managing your life
ExplainLikeImFive - Explanations on complicated topics given as if you are a 5 year old
TodayILearned - Something new to learn for the day
AskReddit - People asking questions on reddit, and getting answers!
UpliftingNews - Positive news of good things that happen in the world
History - Your daily dose of History lessons
Fitness - The name says it all
GetMotivated - If you need motivation, this is the right sub-reddit

It is up to all of us

There is this absolutely stunning documentary released by National Geographic with Leonardo DiCaprio about Climate Change and what we need to do right now to prevent a catastrophic destruction of our planet. I think this has been the best made documentary ever on this topic and is a mandatory see for every human being.

Edited on 13/11/2016 - Looks like National Geographic took down the video from YouTube. I investigated, but can't find the reason why. So the only thing that is legally available now is the trailer.

Though I thought I knew so much about Climate Change before, this documentary really changed my perspective even further. I would highly recommend each one of you to take the time and see this documentary as soon as you can. And then try hard to change your lifestyle in a meaningful way.



I believe as human beings if we are cognizant of the effect of our actions on the environment, and take positive steps to reduce it, we can really achieve a lot in a very short amount of time.