28 January 2006

Pawsted by Unknown

The year of the dog !!!! Boonga' auditions for their acting breakthrough !

Happy chinese new year from the Boonga's !!! Since it is the year of the dog, Boonga figures that the time is now for making it big in Doggywood . Here are a few of their first steps into the movie industry:

"Catch me if you can"
"the long kiss goodbye "
"Fight Club"



"Law and order: SVU"






"The power of One "





"Driving Miss Daisy"





Pawsted by Mosilager

apology

Sorry guys, I just found out that one of my site counters was linking to popups from another site while checking how the site looks on internet explorer. I have removed that particular counter (webstats4u) and now you shouldn't have any problems with the site. Don't use the free version of webstats4u! It puts spam popups on a separate window linking to ilead.itrack.it. Bad webstats4u! No cheesecake!


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Pawsted by Mosilager

Boys will be boys

OK I'm tired of all the "oh so cute" Booboo-Ginga pictures. They are dogs! They are boys! They play hard! Release the hounds! Unleash the dogs of war!
BooBoo makes a play bow which he normally does, probably to show that they should start playing. I have only seen Ginga do that once, to another dog who had no interest whatsoever in playing. It didn't work so I guess that's no encouragement. Poor short-legged Ginga, it's probably hard for him to do.

They do look quite dangerous when they do this, and scared some people on some lakeside at a national park that we were in, but they never hurt each other and stop immediately if one of them goes too far. La piece de resistance:




27 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

At peace with the world

The pack on the couch




Ginga is at peace with the world






26 January 2006

Pawsted by Unknown

boonga uncut ( archived pictures )

Greetings from his highness Booboo, Lord of Brunswick. He is in the process of bestowing a human as his loyal servant.

Guys, the bed is off limit !!!! Hum It appears the phrase "off limit " is not in the Boonga lexicon.


Booboo playing pick-a-boo.



always judge a dog by the way he savors its relaxed time
( A+ for Ginga)


Ginga long lost twin in Antony, bourgh of Paris. ( the name is Balou)







Yannouck, a husky cousin from Bad Kreuznach.





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25 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

Dogs watching TV... or not

Why do some dogs love watching TV and others just ignore it? At home we used to have a doggie who watched TV every night, and I was too small to remember this, but was told by authoritative sources (my family) that he used to cry when sad things were going on. Other people have told me about their dogs who love watching shows with animals in them ? what gives? Ginga and Booboo couldn't care less what's on TV, even if it is chimpanzees (I think Ginga is a quarter-chimpanzee so he should have a natural affinity for them). Anyway so I looked around (what did people do before the internet - ha ha maybe that's why they had time on their hands to invent it) and found out that an Aussie called Dr. Paul McGreevey had asked the same question and actually dissected doggie eyes to figure out the answer. Anyway dogs of different breeds have different kinds of eyes - structurally different. So these guys think that short-nosed dogs have vision more like us and can appreciate TV while long-nosed dogs can't - they're better with peripheral vision and hunting and things like that. Hmmm... maybe I should look for a postdoctoral position in that lab.

24 January 2006

Pawsted by Unknown

10 not so best sellers ( the sequel)

Hum, there was a discount at Border's on the books authored by Booboo and Ginga so one could have 5 books for the price of 10. It wasn't such a good business idea so dogbook publishing has released the rest of the books after shrewd negotiating from the authors (2 cheese sticks each and no bath for 2 weeks ). Here goes:

10. Fear and Loathing in Lafayette Horticulture Park . ( for all the dog hating that has plagued the park lately. C'mon people, the only harmful thing about Booboo and Ginga is their breath !!!)

9. The Chronicles of Boonga . The lion, the bitch and the corn dog. ( A movie project is on the work but Boonga want 10% ....of what we are not sure but at least 10% We are now discussing with other doggies for the lead roles. Tinkerbell and Lassie might be interested. Stay tuned)

8. How Boonga got their couch back. (Preface by I-mei who would rather sit on the floor than chase the dogs way....no, they are not spoiled at all :-) )

7. Watergate: the real story. ( It was not urine on the carpet but merely profuse drooling at the sight of the cheescake left on the table )

6. "Catch 22": ( nobody would confirm this story but it is believed that 22 is actually the code name that the doggie crew has given to Stretch. Stretch has picked up serious speed lately and the ability to bite her own tail hence the phrase catch 22 :-) And you think you would not learn anything from this post !

5. Bonus title: (not published yet) The Doghiker 's guide to free massages and cuddles. ( 2nd shortest book ever )

Boonga is always in search of inspiration so if you could recommend new titles, Boonga will give 10%.... of what they have.

Stay fluffy !


Pawsted by Mosilager

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

We caught the guys sleeping together on the couch. Despite all the sibling rivalry they love each other. I'm not sure that they were supposed to be on the couch though, naughty guys! Maybe the idea is teamwork, like with the trash collection, if both do it the shouting is shared between the two.


22 January 2006

Pawsted by Unknown

10 not so best sellers by Boonga plus a famous relative with Charlie Chaplin

Alright ! My first post on the global phenomenom that is the Booming Boonga blog. ( kind of a cool tongue twister). I am psyched and a bit nervous :-).... Ok here is a list of books authored by the either Booboo or Ginga that sadly did not make it to the new york times best sellers list:

5. Who moved my trash ? A guide to not sweating the small stuff ( or the big one for that matter) Co-authored by Boo and ginga
4. Bark . The power of annoying without getting punished ( or not always) by Booboo ( written everytime the door moves)
3. How to lose 5 pounds in 1 day : a guide to healthy eating by Ginga. ( shortest book ever)
2. The seven habits of highly inefficient doggies. ( very popular among businessdogs) coauthored again
1. Men are from Mars, dogs rule !!!!

Finally, check out this video of one of Booboo' s collie's cousin in a scene with Charlie Chaplin ( favorite actor of the Boonga's because it's all in Black and white and silent ). We are almost there with the training of the doggies ( well at least Ginga is doing the roll over) That's it for today, have a great week.

21 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

Ginga BooBoo at Dog Conference


1. GingaBoo and friends had a good time in the park at their dog conference. Standing Left to Right is Buster, BooBoo, Sophie, Ginga and Stretch. Buster is a golden retriever, Booboo is a border collie mix, Sophie is a Beautiful mix (and the love of BooBoo), Ginga is a german shepherd dog mix and Stretch is another Beautiful mix (I think there is some husky in her).

2. Catch the BooBoo was a favourite game at the conference. BooBoo's strategy was to bark and run, forcing all dogs to try to catch him.












3. A serious hunting class going on, with Stretch leading the way and Sophie and BooBoo trailing. See, there was work done at the Conference.

4. Buster says, "I am tired! BooBoo stop running, stand and fight you knave! Ginga! Come and wrestle like we always do!"











5. Stretch shouts, "Wait for me, I'm coming, Buster! Ginga is chasing BooBoo"







6. "OK OK I'll take a picture. But now I have to go and have a field discussion with Buster! We are working out a very important wrestling strategy."












7. This is Rudy, a veteran of many of these conferences. He lets the young 'uns develop new strategies for the park. He also serves as the group's shaman aka spiritual leader aka thinker aka the wise one. He is their Yoda, except bark he does not very much. May the force be with him all of them!



8. Sophie is happy, "I shook off that BooBoo finally, and nobody is fighting with anybody else. I organised a successful conference."




Pawsted by Mosilager

Flashback to Ginga and Booboo birthdays

It's my dad's birthday so Happy Birthday Accha (അച്ഛാ)! It's his 28th birthday, as he claims, which would make me his twin, if I did my maths correctly. That got me recalling the last birthdays we celebrated, which were those of the Ginga Booboo.
Booboo started his birthday (Halloween, October 31) by sleeping on the couch. Well, his job is to be cute and lovable and make sure that the rest of the pack gets enough excercise!

Ginga started his birthday awake, but he was about 5 minutes away from sleep. Ginga's birthday is on 14 November, for no other reason than it had to be after Booboo's and it's a date I can remember because it's Children's Day in India.

20 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

Eau de dead squirrel OR dogs and stinky stuff


What is up with dogs and stinky things? For all their vaunted sense of scent they love rotting things. Our guys will never miss an opportunity to roll around in dead carcasses / number 2 of some other creature. Today Ginga went outside the house to take a stroll and found somebody's garbage that had been left outside, on the footpath. So he tore into the stuff and managed to eat quite a bit before we caught him. Then he realised that he was in trouble and got his teeth brushed with the peanut butter as well as the bubble gum toothpaste. The comment was made that nobody will be scared of him now because he smells like bubble gum. Whatever he got into was quite stinky, though. What a species. Those two hate taking a bath but no problem bathing in mud with all sorts of detritus that stinks so badly that we have the car windows open even though it's 1 degree outside.

Being scavengers they probably are attracted to garbage. I guess in the wild wolves wouldn't have lived very long if they refused to eat food that had been lying around. So that explains the love for rotting food, but I still don't know about rolling around in stinky things. Maybe it's their perfume. Eau de dead squirrel, that won't make Ralph Lauren's next line.

कुत्तों और बदबू वाली चिज़ों का क्या ताल्लुक है? इतने अच्छे नाक होने के बावजूद भी वह हमेशा गंदी गंदी चीज़ें खाते रहते हैं। आज गिंगा अकेले बाहर गया और उसे बगल वाले घर के सामने उनका कूड़ा मिला। या तो उन लोगों को सुस्ती हो गई है या फिर लड़ाई कि कौन कूड़े को कूड़ादान मे फेंकेगा। उनके अनिश्चय के कारण हमें कठिनाई हो गई। कुच्छ देर के बाद ही हमें समझ मे आया कि गिंगा बाहर कुड़ा खा रहा है। उसके बाद उसे अन्दर बुला के हमने थोड़ा डाण्टा, और खूब दंतमञ्जन किया, अब वह बब्ल-गम के जैसे महकने लगा है। लोग अब उससे डरते भी नहीं होंगे, बच्चों जैसी सुगंध है उसकी। दोनों कोई ऐसा अवसर भी नहीं छोड़ते जहाँ उन्हें किसी सड़े हुए जान्वर या बदबू वाली मिट्टी मे लेटने को मिले। लेटने की बात तो दूर, वह उसमे खेलते हैं। नाक तो अच्छी ही होगी, लेकिन शायद दिमाग मे ही कमज़ोरी है। लेकिन नहाने के वक़्त दोनों ग़ुम हो जाते है, बहुत मुशकिल है उन्हें नहाने के लिए ले जाने को।
सड़े हुए चीज़ें शायद उन्हें इसीलिए पसन्द हैं क्योंकी भेड़ियों की ऐसी स्तिथी नहीं थी कि वह किसी भी खाने को ठुकरा सके। सड़ा हुआ तो सड़ा हुआ, नहीं खाया गया तो ज़्यादा देर अपना भेड़िया जीवित रह नहीं पाता। इससे तो पहले की बात समझ मे आई, लेकिन यह मरे हुए जान्वरों के ऊपर लेटने का क्या चक्कर है? शायद यह उनकी खुशबू है। यह 'मरे हुए गिलाह्री' का सुगन्ध लोगों के लोक मे सफल नहीं होगा।

19 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

Thanks for visiting

Thanks for visiting!
यहाँ आने के लिए धन्यवाद।
ഇവിടേ വന്നതിന് നന്ദി.




18 January 2006

Pawsted by Mansoora


Wish they were bloomin......

On a cold dreary day like today, let alone the last one week..wouldn't it be nice to see some nice rays of sunshine and some daisys? mmmm






Pawsted by Mosilager

Life's a pitch


Life's a pitch! Here's Siddhartha Vaidyanathan talking about how the pitch always gets blamed for drawn matches or one team performing badly. Those grounds staff can never win. I think Dravid's been pretty good at not criticising the pitch so much, he usually talks about the players not adapting to conditions. Anyway, with 1089 runs at a rate of 4.93, I think we can be justified in thinking that even we would have been able to score against the Rawalpindi express and co.

Translation of the above for non-cricket fans:
In a game where the ball bounces on the surface before being hit, the surface is very important. In the last India-Pakistan 5 day match at Lahore, the surface only favoured the batsmen (or the hitters/batters), so much so that they made more than a 1000 points very quickly. In fact it was the fastest ever. So I think that was a bad surface, and I was speculating that my friends and I over here could have faced off against the world's best bowlers (pitchers) on that track. Life's a pitch talks about how the surface always gets blamed for any strange result, and I made the point that the Indian captain never complains about the pitch, only the players :)

My previous cricket posts
Learning while webtrawling

Pawsted by Mosilager

ghost dog


We were "parking" the doggies again when they disappeared into a typical Indiana forest (or what I think is a typical Indiana forest). After a while we heard a couple of barks which didn't sound like either of them so we went to investigate. We didn't hear the barks any more and the doggies came back. Lova saw something white and thought it was a dog (Sierra - not again!) but it turned out to be a big fat rabbit. Needless to say, Ginga and Booboo failed to catch it, actually on a scale of 1-10 they were -10 as they ran in the opposite direction to the rabbit. Maybe that is the point of those guys, to flush out the game so the waiting people can get it, but anyway that's how it went down. Our investigation didn't turn up any strange dogs, the barking was probably Booboo with different accoustics due to the Indiana jungle.

Booboo's mum comes back today, which completes the Booboo-Ginga fan club in Lafayette so I might talk about something other than the doggies... hmmm... what else is there?


15 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

park time

Park time with the doggies! Lots of running and sniffing.




Rest time!
















14 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

Friday the 13th is really Wednesday the 11th

I didn't fear Friday the 13th this month because Wednesday the 11th delivered with bonuses. I had taken the Booster and the Ginger out for their evening walk. The doggies were sniffing around the ground and Ginga (as he commonly does) found something to crunch on, probably a bone. I couldn't see what it was so I told him to drop it. During that time Booboo saw a rabbit and took off, dragging the leash behind him. "Well," I thought, "when he gets into the woods chasing rabbits the leash will get stuck on the trees and I can catch Boo easily." So I let Ginga go as well, it's much easier than teaching him that pulling on the leash works. So by the time I got to the woods after them, stepping through a lot of wet mud in 0 degree weather, both were stuck as hypothesised. Booboo started barking so I went to free him first, the squeaky wheel again gets the grease, and it took some time to untangle him from the mess he had created, especially when each new degree of freedom led to more sniffing and rabbit hunting. So Booboo is finally free and then we went to look for the Ginga. Booboo led me right to him, or so I thought when I saw the leash. There was only a broken collar at the end of the leash and no Ginga. He had pulled hard enough to smash the pins on the collar and taken off. These were some new collars fitted on them only the week before to enhance visibility in the dark. Well, if they're not on the doggie then they don't work very well. I stuffed the collar in the pocket and started walking around to find Ginga. I saw him every now and then but he wouldn't come close enough to even take a treat. Trying to get him jealous by feeding Booboo and lavishing attention did not work either. These guys are learning from each other, or maybe from Mel "they can take away my food but not my freedom" Gibson. Booboo by now is getting very unhappy at being on the leash and wants to race after rabbits so I took him back to the house where he stayed until the conclusion of this adventure.

OK back out again in the cold and damp and mud looking for Ginga. This area is not lighted very well and I occasionally only saw flashes from cars on the neighbouring highway. So there are cars and roads around, and by this time I got quite scared that Ginga would be involved in some kind of incident with them. Some type of instinct led me directly this time to his location and he took off, with me in full chase after him through the woods. This time 4 legs beat 2 and I couldn't see him any more and only hear him through the bush. I repeated this a few times and lost him for a while before he showed up again smiling and saying, "isn't this fun, look, so many rabbits." Or alternatively, some doggy version of "you can't catch me, na na na na na na." During these disappearances twice I heard cars hooting loudly close by and that compounded the whole Friday the 13th experience on Wednesday the 11th. Eventually I went back home to bring Boo to see if Ginga would come back. Ginga was following me but did not want to come inside. So I got Booboo out, Lova came with a cheesestick and eventually fed Boo enough to make Ginga jealous, or maybe he was just really hungry by that time. Now we could put the old collar on him and get him inside. I think maybe he was just scared that we'd be really angry that he ran away but we were more happy that he came back in one piece. This calls for more training near rabbits so they don't stop listening.

So after that 2 hour ordeal, you would think that my night of horrors would end, but, this was only the beginning. Did I mention that it was cold? Well, it was. So, later at night, I was returning home from research when my right front tyre lost all air. It didn't sound like a burst, more like a thump thump thump of the rim feeling more of the road than it is used to. I stopped the car on the side of the road and tried to get my spare tyre out. This spare tyre has never been touched by human hands before, as far as I can tell, and it will not come out of its metal moorings by any force known to man. I decided to call up my emergency road service, who were happy to inform me that I have no such service even though it's on the insurance card. Oh well, call for backup. Booboo's daddy to the rescue. Unfortunately his spare tyre does not fit mine as it has spaces for 4 nuts while mine has space for 5. So we decided to try to force my spare out by checking for instructions on the internet. Also a kindly officer of the law had come up and informed us that we could leave the car there for a couple of hours while we went home. Web didn't turn up anything so we called up a friend at 0030 to ask if he has 4 holes in his spare tyre or 5. After some explaining, he went outside in his pyjamas and figured out that he has 5. So we got the tyre back to the car and it is too big for my car. My friend happens to be the only one on the planet with a full size spare. This is where we decided that the forces arrayed against us were far too great and went home to sleep.

Next morning things got sorted out after a mini-scare while we were passing the car location on our way to fixing the bad tyre. Another officer was turning in to where the car was. We followed him in but he just left without paying any attention to the car. I bought a new tyre at the garage and came back to install it. During installation I found that one of the lug nuts was missing so now I'm running on 4. Back to the garage, who didn't have a spare lug nut but they did inform me that 4 was ok, but nothing less than 3 :) No speed limits either, other than the officially posted ones. So now I'm rolling again.

In conclusion, I hope the Wednesday the 11th thing cancels out all the Friday the 13th problems. I didn't talk to or massage Ginga at all that night, and he had to watch while Booboo got cheese sticks and sausages. It's probably our fault, doggies will chase after rabbits, we just have to train them not to.

Edit - an account of this is up at my roomie's blog.

13 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

Baby Boo

Found some pictures of Booboo when he was a little puppy. We got him from the shelter as a present to his future mommy. She had no idea and got scared when she saw the little black thing running around. She thought he was a rat or something, and that's how he got his name. Anyway the rat grew up into a Booboo. So here's the lowdown:









12 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

Lily



This is Lily, a friend of Booboo and Ginga's. She had a bad time when she was young and was found and taken to the shelter where our friend found her. Now she is happy and gaining weight and probably will soon try to compete with Booboo in running fast :) I'm sure she can beat the Ginga, but Booboo is the fastest dog I know so the competition is on! ha ha that's just how humans think, I think those doggies will have a good time tiring each other out.



10 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

There's More to the North Star Than Meets the Eye


This is pretty cool. The North Star is actually 3 stars. Wonder if a telescope on the moon would give us better information. Maybe Europe, USA, India and China can collaborate to put a telescope on the moon instead of running separate Moon/Mars missions.


HubbleSite - Full story about "There's More to the North Star Than Meets the Eye": "By stretching the capabilities of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to the limit,
astronomers have photographed the close companion of Polaris for the first time.
They presented their findings today in a press conference at the 207th meeting of
the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C."

08 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

learning while webtrawling

Here are some cool things I learnt while webtrawling, in no particular order

1. a dog that looks just like booboo, this is Valorie from K9SARdog.com
2. a new season of the Cesar Milan is on. Problem dog? No problem, just take her (him) for a walk. And check out the comments while you are at it
3. I just found out that well-preserved ancient human bodies have been recovered from bogs in Europe for a long time, and these are not just people who couldn't function without GPS.
4. James Randi has been exposing fraudsters for a long time, especially those who use superstition to shake money out of people. An ex-magician, he found that lots of these people use magic tricks to amaze others not aware of these. His foundation offers 1 million dollars to anyone who can prove that a paranormal event occured.
5. Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam says that great scientists have courage. I had never thought about that before reading this article but it's absolutely true. Most of the time it's the ability to admit if you were wrong when somebody (or yourself) find new evidence, and some of the time it's challenging what the whole world thinks (Nobel Prize 2005 for physiology or medicine to Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren).
6. Since the India-Pakistan cricket series is on again, everyone's been asking where the smiling assassin is. Well he's injured but he'll be back. People from Team India have some cool nicknames, "Master Blaster" "Turbanator" "The Wall" "Very Very Special", best of luck to them in Pakistan.

04 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

booboo=ginga

Booboo was acting just like Ginga today! So I haven't explained this before, but Ginga is a very cuddly dog. He attains mammalian levels of cuddliness every day, asking for massages and positioning himself to tell us where to massage and so on, he even returns the massage when you tell him to by licking although that gets quite messy quite fast as you might imagine. The cuddliness of the Gingster along with his whining when he wants to go out to meet some random doggie walking by or for other purposes leads me to think that he is spiritually a chimpanzee. So he is more of a Ginganzee than a Ginga. So Booboo today sat down just like Ginga and got a massage. He put his head down just like the Ginganzee and was enjoying the massage! Craziness, as Oliver from Coupling would say. Boozee doesn't quite roll of the tongue as well as Ginganzee though. Well after all this massage experience I might be able to start a doggie massage clinic ha ha ha.

In other news the doggies' training is going well. I've been trying to associate food with staying close to me while walking i.e. heeling. So far I've tried sausage and bread. Ginga is a little slow to catch on but Booboo knows exactly what I'm wanting. Hopefully they start doing it whenever I tell them to after next week or so, without bribery and corruption. Fat chance right? The other thing I'm training them to do is not to pull on the leash, for any reason. They do an OK job now, but are still susceptible to the odd rabbit. I figure by stopping and making them sit if they pull even slightly they'll figure it out eventually. Just have to be consistent. And with the chance of getting some good food every now and then, they should start paying more attention, at least that's what all the books say so I'll believe them.

No Sierra sightings since Booboo's papa went on vacation. I guess now she'll be back as well as he's back.

01 January 2006

Pawsted by Mosilager

Happy New Year

Booboo changed begging tactics while waiting for the new year - or just got tired and found a convenient pillow.




Booboo and Ginga brought in the new year with some hugging, inspired by the humans around them.
But tiredness soon caught up with the brothers and they slept.




Happy New Year!