The Decline...

I guess this might be old news to some, but like most news, I always find out late. This thing really gets me upset. What am I talking about? www.ashleymadison.com. That's what!

Ashley Madison is an actress who started The Ashley Madison Agency. What does The Ashley Madison Agency do? Well, their slogan says it all - "Life is short. Have an affair." If you are married and live in the USA, Canada or the UK, you are a part of their target audience. "When monogamy becomes monotony", you register with them and they set you up with another married person who is also looking to stray. And the affair begins.

They have been around for five years now. As of May 2008, they had 2 million subscribers to their services! They have billboards all over the place, TV and radio and print ads and these people are making millions of dollars.

They even have a special wing for celebs. They make sure your affairs stay under the carpet where they belong and away from the prying paparazzi. They are even offering free lifetime memberships to a select few A-list celebs. How convenient! Just what Hollywood needs right now!

For people who feel guilty about considering an affair, they even have online articles on their website to help you get over it and get on with it. Oh joy! Articles include "The Myth of Monogamy" and "Responsible non-Monogamy: A Brief Introduction to Polymory". Cheating responsibly? Are you kidding me?!

They even have a glossary available for the cheaters - "Vocabulary: A Glossary of Polymory terms". After all, we all know the importance of having a large and politically correct vocabulary when having an affair! You don't want to offend a fellow cheater by using the wrong technical terminology.

To defend themselves, they use the whole "they are consenting adults" spiel. Really? So if these two adults consent, then they can go ahead and wreck the lives of their non-consenting families? That's ok then.

It's bad enough that people cheat in their marriages. Now they have an agency? I was reading some reviews and one lady commented "If someone is going to cheat, they will cheat - with or without ashleymadison.com." That may be true to an extent, but do we want to make things so easy for them?

I couldn't go through their articles. About halfway through browsing through their site, I think their system suddenly realized that my IP address is not American. So they blocked me out. All I got from them after that was "We are unable to process your request due to your present location." Drat! Now I can't even leave a comment.

From what I read, the general public (with some exceptions, of course) doesn't seem very pleased with the site and many have even broken up with their spouses because they realized that they had accounts with the agency.

How many broken families can be credited to the wonderful work of The Ashley Madison Agency, I wonder?

Moment of Truth

We were watching this show "The Moment of Truth" last night. It is this Truth or Dare sort of game (without the dare) where a person is strapped to a lie detector and asked personal questions. All you have to do is answer every question truthfully in order to win $500,000. To make things worse, you have your family members and friends sitting in front of you listening to you answer questions that sometimes are very hurtful to them. Tough show!

There were all sorts of embarrassing questions about husbands and wives, finances and hairpieces. But the question that struck me the most was "Do you really care about starving children in Africa?" That got me thinking...

Do I care about starving children in Africa? Or do I like myself better when I care about starving children in Africa?

I thought long and hard and I guess that it is not the action that makes a person nice or not nice, it is the motive.

But then again I have to ask - if we all had to have the perfect "nice" motive for doing nice things, then would people who really needed acts of kindness get them or not? Or would the starving children just have to starve to death? Is there a genuinely nice person left in this world who will feed them?

I guess that means fake niceness is better than no niceness at all? But that doesn't sound right to me. I'm confused.

PS - Who defines who is a nice person and who isn't? Is there a World Council for Niceness? Are they the World Council because they are all nice people? What makes them nice? What did they do? Or not do? (I just had to put this part in for the benefit of those who understand.)

Disclaimer - This post has more questions than answers. I may or may not have made a lot of sense. I apologize. This is my frame of mind right now. I may actually disagree with myself later. All permissions to eat own words reserved.

Jerry - A Biography

I can't believe I have been posting about this and that and everything and I still haven't mentioned my favorite dog in the whole wide world!




Meet Jerry.



He is going through a hard time at the moment. In the last 5 months, he has had about 5 surgeries on his eye. He is now blind in his left eye. Lost his right hind leg because this quack doctor gave him a shot in the wrong place and hit a nerve. Now his hind leg is completely paralyzed.

On some days, he is quite down in the dumps and mopes around the house (can you blame him?). But most of the time he is a happy, hungry dog.

He is never full. He will eat as long as you can keep the food coming. "What does he eat?" you ask? Not dog food - that's for sure! He only eats what we eat. He enjoys dosai, bread, chapathis, puris etc. Not a big rice lover - but then again, neither am I. He loves any sort of meat, eggs and is an absolute fiend for anything sweet. He is kinda fat, as you can see!

He loves his bone. He even protects when he is asleep sometimes. He has never bitten anyone in his life but the closest he has come to snapping at someone is when I tried to pry the bone out of his paws. Even then, he would never bite anyone.

He hates it when people come to our house and don't pay any attention to him. The minute you pat him on the head and say hi, he becomes your best friend.

He hates being home alone and gets very upset the minute he hears the jingling of the house keys in my hand. He whines as we leave. The minute we walk back in the door, he is the happiest, waggiest dog! He doesn't walk, but prances and leaps for the next 5 or 10 minutes.

He understands most things we say, but chooses to pretend like he doesn't so he doesn't have to obey. I especially love the way he looks at me with his head cocked to one side when I say something he really doesn't understand. It is very, very cute. Take my word for it. I talk to him a lot - usually when there's no one else around.

He doesn't normally live with us. He lives with my in-laws. We are just taking care of him while he is being treated for his eye problems. He is almost completely fine and he will go soon.

I really don't know what I am going to do without him!




PS - Its been one month since I started blogging and I am glad I haven't already quit. Yay!!!