The Little Book of Hindu Deities

Sanjay Patel, an animator and storyboard artist at Pixar animation has designed this wonder book on Hindu Deities. He has given a total new approach towards looking at Hindu gods and goddesses. The book brings new life into old mythology, by telling the stories of various deities at same time drawing us in-literally-with joyous and unexpected full-color illustrations.

I am sure this book can certainly help educating your child on Hinduism without taking many efforts.

The book is also available on Amazon. Also, check out some Sample pages and Sketches from same book.

This shows that, Given a better presentation & style Hindu mythology can be cool and interesting.

Its Orkut for Me

After staying away from social networking sites for quite long time, I finally joined Orkut.

There are many Social networking websites in the market. The popular ones are MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, LinkedIn, Classmates.com, Friendster, Yahoo! 360°. But I found Orkut is the most suitable for me due to the availability of friends on this web site. Orkut turns out to be the most popular social networking website used in India.

It seems like now a days everyone is on Orkut. I noticed it is a better way of maintaining contact with those long-lost friends; otherwise it would have been never possible to find these people. Its like you scrap my book, I'll scrap yours.

For me, There were many surprises found from school days to office colleagues listed in the search.

Toad's Project Manager Tool

Sometime working with large database team on single project is challenging. I found that everyone is creating their own application schemas, database objects inter linked with common objects, creating dependency on each other. Soon it becomes complex environment to manage and work on.

As result of this; while working on particular module you get distracted by all these unrelated objects. A simple task of finding a table or Package which needs modification takes a while; it takes too much of clicking and scrolling.

So yesterday while going thru Toad Menu I found this very useful tool called "Project Manager". At the beginning, I was skeptical thinking that it’s just another not-so useful fancy tool, but it turns out to be very handy.



Basically, Project Manager allows you to easily organize your work area. It provides a centralized screen to manage our most frequently related objects.

All you need to do is find out all the objects you need to work on and then just drag-and-drop in Project Manager Panel, you are all set to work on your module.

The beauty of this is you can even add your ad-hoc Sql files, OS Folders, URL, Unix FTP Server and even make "To-do" list related your project.

Bollywood’s Children song

Somehow our little one loves music; particularly bollywood songs and so far his favorite songs are from “Lage Raho Munna Bhai”. He hints by clapping his hand when he wants to listen 'Pal Pal Har Pal' song.

After repeatedly playing these songs from many days he got bored and so did we. Therefore I thought to find out songs that he will enjoy. I could hardly find more than five songs that could be counted as children’s song made in bollywood which has enjoyable music. Those are

Lakdi Ki Kathi from Masoom (1983)
Chanda Chamke from Fanaa (2006)
Mere Paas Aao from Mr.Natwarlal (1979)

I still remember I loved ‘Lakdi Ki kathi’ most in my childhood days.
Unlike bollywood I did find many songs in Marathi known as "Bala Geete" including most popular
"Mamachya Gaavala Javooya"
"Zuk Zuk Aagin Gadee"
"Naach Re Mora"

Barcamp2 at Pune

I am not sure when I will get a chance to attend one, But certainly I've added this thing in my "things to do list". This is second barcamp happening in Pune within period of one year time...not a bad start.

The BarCampPune2 is happening on 16th December at Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Pune. You can find it more about it here.

M&M's Scorpio to enter US Market.

Scorpio has been my favourite SUV in the Indian Automobile market ever since the day I rented it for my wedding. It was love at first sight due to its comfort factor and smoothness on Indian Road. It got the same ruggedness style with performance which had in good ole Yamaha Rx-100.

Soon M&M's Scorpio will be seen on the North America road, The exact date of the US launch will be announced in April ’07. M&M will be the first Indian automaker to enter the highly-competitive American passenger vehicle market , an uphill battle for M&M. I wish them all the best and I hope to be proud owner of Scorpio one day in future.

Team Lunch at Pongsri Thai Restaurant

Another Holiday lunch at New York City at Pongsri Thai Restaurant and this time I did finish Pad Thai completely. The dishes were tasty and prices are moderate. Thou the wine was disappointment, I would have preferred Thai Ice-Tea instead.

Growing a Beard

Usually Monday morning is the time, when I shave which last for 5 business days and by weekend it come backs to its original growth.

Last few Mondays, I've skipped the shaving process due to laziness which resulted into light beard. Now it has become a curiosity factor to really see myself in full grown beard. Its been almost 2 weeks and the plan is complete 5 weeks which will put this into New year. Start the New Year with clean shave and slim hair cut in well groomed manner.

On scientific note, Winter is the best season for growing a beard which can provide protection against the bitter cold. While in summer, it can sweat your face.

But for next few weeks I’ve to live with this itchy feeling of Beard.

Handy Hand

Our little one has started understanding few instructions and properly following them. Few of them are “Where is a remote control?” once he finds the remote, He sincerely brings it to us, so we don’t get need to move our lazy ass.

Another useful one is now he knows where to throw dirty diapers, exactly in the bathroom dustbin.

It does not hurt having another handy hand in the Home.

Winter Time

Its winter time and we are trying to spend much of our time by staying indoor.
So just to make our winter time entertaining; we got for our self these toys.

For us


For our Little one

Unusually Warm Weather

We have been waiting for that November's cold weather, but so far we are blessed with unusually warm weather.

Today is Last day of November and we are still in 64's when we were suppose to be 46s.

The extra warm days are always welcome with open heart.

Ending of Vacations

The Vacations ended with not so good incidents few of them are:

*Forgetting the Car Seat Base at the Airport
*Delays in getting Baby strollers back from Cabin check-ins.
*Confusion with Airport Parking Pick-up service.
And last but not least Finding out the car with dead battery.

But Finally It feels good to be back Home.

Drive to Miami

After enjoying the Hot tub at Resort's swimming pool in the morning; our next stop was IHOP restaurant, where we had relaxing breakfast resulting into delays for water park.

The planned Typhoon Lagoon theme park was disappointment due to the cold weather and late arrival and early closing. So for our next destination we started the drive on Florida Turnpike and I-95 from Orlando to Miami. The average speed on this freeway is 80 mph. If you are in the left lane then you need to maintain 90-95 mph to go along with traffic and don’t get surprised if you see the road sign with “Next Exit 41 Miles”

Disney's Magic Kingdom

As they say it’s must see theme park and the one of the major attraction of Florida and Disney world. We entered the Park with presumed expectations but left the park with sweet memories. Our favorite and the best ones are ‘Wishes Nighttime Spectacular’, ‘Splash Mountain’ & ‘Winnie the Pooh’ thou we did cover following ones in one full day.

Swiss Family Treehouse
Splash Mountain
The Haunted Mansion
Liberty Square Riverboat
Mickey's Country House
Minnie's Country House
Fantasyland Play Area
Mad Tea Party
Tomorrowland Indy Speedway
Walt Disney World Railroad
Tomorrowland Transit Authority
Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress
Wishes Nighttime Spectacular
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Snow White's Scary Adventures
SpectroMagic Parade

Only regrettable missed ones are
Pirates of the Caribbean
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

The unfortunate thing was, It was too late to discover how FastPass Service works, which could have saved huge waiting time for each rides.

Disney's Animal Kingdom

After watching Travel channels ‘Walt Disney World Resort: Behind the Scenes’ TV program, I was more interested in 'Kilimanjaro Safaris', 'The Tree of Life' & experience the ‘It's Tough to be a Bug’ show.

Even thou we entered the park at afternoon, we did cover most of them.

The Tree of Life
Kilimanjaro Safaris
Expedition Everest
It's Tough to be a Bug!
Wildlife Express Train
TriceraTop Spin
The Oasis Exhibits

Only regrettable missed ones are 'Kali River Rapids' & 'Maharajah Jungle Trek'.

Bahama Bay Resort

The flight from EWR to Orlando,FL(MCO) hardly took 2 hrs but the wait time in Budget car rental queue was almost 1 hr and then wasted few rounds to airport terminal to find the passenger pickup spot. Getting directions and driving to the resorts resulted into additional 2 hrs. Finally at 01:00 pm we reached at the Bahama Bay Resort just to find out that their standard check-in time is 04:00 pm. After requesting we finally got the keys.



Everything was forgotten as soon as we entered into the condo unit. It was Caribbean style 3 bedrooms, Full Kitchen, Living room unit with balcony facing towards the lake including all amenities. It was beyond our expectations.

Evening was spent by visiting not so attractive Disney Downtown & Walmart.

Deserving Vacation !

“Have a great vacation - you deserve it!”

Those were the words of my manager,
I am not sure I deserve It or Not ? but It feels good.

Raise in India's Forex Reserve

Its been happening quite sometime now, That whenever I transfer money to India, I see the rise in India's forex reserves. So coincidental ! Here is The News.

India's forex reserves went up by $1.168 billion to stand at $168.284 billion during the week ended November 10 as against $167.116 billion during the week ended November 3.

Lesson Learned abt MERGE command

While helping out one of my colleague with his MERGE Command, We were misguided by wrong oracle error message for almost 1 hr.
The error was ORA-00904:invalid identifier.

Ultimately, I found that it was undocumented restriction that you cannot UPDATE any column that you are MERGING on or Joining on.

For Ex.
MERGE INTO emp e
USING emp_stage d
ON (e.empno = d.empno
e.deptid = d.deptid
)
WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE
SET e.deptid = d.deptid,
e.ename = d.ename,
e.sal = d.sal,
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
INSERT ( empno, deptid, ename, sal )
values ( d.empno,
d.deptid,
d.ename,
d.sal);

ERROR at line 4:
ORA-00904: "d"."deptid": invalid identifier

But if you remove deptid Join, It works.

MERGE INTO emp e
USING emp_stage d
ON (e.empno = d.empno
--e.deptid = d.deptid
)
WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE
SET e.deptid = d.deptid,
e.ename = d.ename,
e.sal = d.sal,
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
INSERT ( empno, deptid, ename, sal )
values ( d.empno,
d.deptid,
d.ename,
d.sal )

It was common sense, How would you update column on which you are making selection ? It is same as mutating table error, only it hasn't been documented yet. May be It should say:

ORA-99999:cannot UPDATE column that are MERGING on.

This will save lot of developers debugging time.

Fallen Fall

Every morning I look at this window while brushing my teethes and this is how the view has changed from color and B&W. Its almost mid November and all the tree leaves have fallen down. Now wonder they call this season Fall. Surprisingly, since last two weeks we were blessed with unusually warm weathers in mid 60s.

Non-stop from JFK to BOM

I've been waiting for this news, and here comes the news "Fly non-stop from Mumbai to NY". Delta Air Lines has launched a non-stop flight connecting New York and Mumbai. Its been quite sometime that Continental is flying non-stop to Delhi, but it wasn’t much helpful.



Certainly non-stop makes a big difference by cutting down travel time at least 4 hrs, Less take-offs and landings, No security check and No need of transit visa, uninterrupted sleep. I just hope that Lavatories will be sanitized and cleaned properly.

This just makes the World and Home a little bit closer.

Visit to Yankee Candle Store

Claims to be world's largest candle store, with nearly 200 fragrances, from florals to foods. But What we loved most was the display of "Bavarian Christmas Village".

Diwali of 2006

Thats my take of Diwali Lights.

• Taken in Candle Mode

• Taken in Auto Mode

Nothing New about IE7

After completely deleting/uninstalling Internet explorer from my machine due to Ad-ware & Spyware attack, I noticed that I did not miss IE at all. The Mozilla Firefox with IE Tab Add-on was more than enough to meet all web sites requirements.

But today I gave thought to installing newly released IE7, just to get familiar with all the new features. Surprisingly, I did not find any significant new features; everything newly added was already available in Firefox. So this IE7 release was mostly to catch up with Firefox features.

I was at least anticipating the feature where I could right click, highlight the word and search the web for that selected word, which can be easily done in Firefox.

The only unique feature is you can set a different home page for each tab, but I am not sure how much this feature will be useful.

Playskool Busy Ball Popper

This is the new addition to our Little one's Toy Collection. My intention behind buying this Toy was to keep him busy. In addition, It was eligible for *FREE Super Saver Shipping on Amazon.

But in reality, I found that the balls are always flying around, and I am the one who is collecting them constantly, which keeps me busy. When the Air blower fan starts to pop the ball, It sounds like Vaccum Cleaner. It works only well with 3-4 Balls at time, but soon it stops automatically when it gets interesting.

The real bad thing about this toy is, Even thou it has been priced below $20, It requires 4 D batteries which costs almost $5. So overall not Recommended one.

Speaking of batteries, these days I am really spending big chunk of money on all kinds batteries. Recently purchesed AA/AAA battery charger is not much useful as every toy has different kind of battery for ex. D, C, AA, AAA, 9 Volt.

Delicious Chocolate Movie

The Random selection of the movies from local library is working very well; We get to see another great movie called "Chocolat".

This fictional European movie is all about chocolate and the effect of these divine chocolates on the French villagers. In fact Chocó powder and fresh hot chocolate have been shown so many times that you can’t resist not having one.

Now I wonder what is the bollywood movie "Chocolate" is all about ?

Those Little Baby Steps

Today is the day; we can mark on the calendar as the day when our little one started taking those little steps.

He's been attempting this stunt from last few days but today is the one, we can count as the successful attempt; which was whole 20 steps completing one small circle. Until then we didn’t know that few M&M'S Candies could inspire him to achieve this target.

Truly, It was the moment to treasure for, a joy to watch his efforts and excitement to achieve that tiny distance.

A Long Journey from this moment.

Fall of 2006

Thats was the Fall Drive up towards North.

Guruji.com

Is the Guruji.com next big thing for India ?

Today, It has been officially launched as Indian Local Search engine, which is Google for the world. Mainly focused on providing better search results to Indian consumers, by leveraging proprietary algorithms and data in the Indian context.

But Isn't there already http://www.google.co.in/ for that, which searches pages exclusively from India. Also, There is Khoj.com ,The Great Indian Search Engine.
My guess is, It will used mainly for Local Searches for ex "Pune Sweets Shop" and Google Local is not there for India.

Guruji.com is being backed by Sequoia Capital India, a venture capital firm and so far the trend is whatever Sequoia Capital has funded turns out to be big one including Google, Yahoo, Paypal and the recent Youtube.

My advise is, Change the color of Search Result Text.

Dinner at Chola,CT

It was the dinner for two at Chola (CT), turns out to be a quiet evening being only two people sitting in the whole restaurant. No wonder, they have different price tag for Dinner than Lunch.

The dinner started with complimentary papad and chutney. As a Starter, we ordered Chola Veggie Basket which contains all types of pakodas including onions, potato, flowers and samosa served with Mango Chutney. A heavy one, if you are ordering just for two.

On side dish it was Mulltigawny Soup (Puree of lentil soup, lemon) for our little one, which looked like he enjoyed.

The main course was Malai Kofta & Punjabi Kadhi (A must try written on menu) with garlic & plain Naan served with plain rice sprinkled with green chickpeas.

Overall Food was great considering the expensive price tag exclusively applied on Dinners.

Known to be Martha Stewart's favorite local Indian restaurant, so don’t be surprise to see many dishes have been tagged as Martha Stewart's favorite on their Menu Card.

Eating Walnuts

Its time that I should start eating those Walnuts, which are currently lying around in the pantry. Few Walnet Receipes to help you consume walnut in various forms.


Specially I enjoy cracking the walnut shells and eating the inside part rather than eating ready made one.

Research suggests that eating walnuts at the end of a meal may help cut the damage that fatty food can do to the arteries, Tests showed the walnuts helped to reduce the sudden onset of harmful inflammation and oxidation in arteries that follows a meal high in saturated fat.

Walnuts also helped preserve the elasticity and flexibility of the arteries, regardless of cholesterol level.

Weekend in Hudson River Valley

India, here comes Starbucks !

Personally, I didn’t like the Starbucks coffee. The French toast flavor available at office pantry is enough stronger for me. Today’s news is that Starbucks is planning to open its store in India by end of 2007. It’s their long term international expansion plan. I am doubtful about their success in Indian market as compare to the phenomenal success they achieved here in the US.

India is traditionally a tea drinking nation; thou Coffee culture has been getting bigger due to the students and working professionals. For that market we have already local brands like Café Coffee Day & Barista, which have their own aggressive expansion plan. Surely Starbucks will face competition from Café Coffee Day & Barista in India. They will have to customize its drinks for the Indian market, the way McD’ has Aloo tiki in their Menu. Most importantly, they will not be able to enjoy expensive pricing strategy with huge margin, which has been a factor in their success story.

On personal note I do remember my first date with my wife, which happened in Café Coffee Day, where we ordered one cup of International Coffee and spend most of the time without drinking even one sip. So these coffee shops are most of the time used as hangout place or as meeting place rather than for their drinks. I would certainly like to see Starbucks store in Himalayas.

On positive side, Being a global brand Starbucks has advantage of attracting elite customers. Here in the corporate world, we have fashion to hold Starbucks cup in our hand during those weekly meetings. It doesn’t matter even if it’s empty.

Oh did you notice that SRK was holding Starbucks cup in his hand quite a few times in KANK.

Team Lunch at Darbar Indian Restaurant

This time it was the Darbar Indian Restaurant for our team lunch, an occasion to visit New York. A point to note that I do not miss visiting New York, specially for The Work.

What I noticed about these Team Lunches is, if there are more than 12 people in the team then you can hardly listen to the conversation of person sitting on other side of the table. As result of this, mostly what happen is two Groups get formed and each having different conversation on different topic. But having a round dinning table you can avoid this situation, which are rare to find in the restaurants.

Speaking of Darbar, Food was according to standard, atmosphere was decent and price was modest. Only problem with the Lunch Buffet is when you want to get something its not there and you hate making frequent rounds and changing the plate each time on that congested table. I would also appreciate, if I could get a Naan on time, at least not after I about to finish my food.

Literacy, Bollywood Style

Now I know why there are subtitles (Same Language Subtitling-SLS), when the Hindi Song plays on Rangoli and Chitrahaar. The idea behind it is to help people in India to improve their reading by putting subtitles in their own language.

This initiative was started by PlanetRead, which employs Same Language Subtitling (SLS) to give subconscious reading practice for 30 minutes a week to more than 200 million early-literates in India, operating via 10 TV programmes in 10 languages. PlanetRead is also contributing to recently announced Google's The Literacy Project.

A small IDEA to improve the world.

Cold & Flu Season

Yesterday night I woke up looking for Nyquil in the cabinet but I was disappointed not finding it there. No wonder, Smart people stock up these must have primary medicines for the 11th hour. This is the cold flu season and I am suffering from it.

The first indication that I will fall sick starts with the soar throat which takes place by having cold and hot things one after another and seems like this time it was hot soup and cold water. The previous experience was espresso coffee shot and thums up.

So today morning before coming to office, first I went to CVS pharmacy to get the Vicks Nyquil Multi-Symptom Cold & Flu Relief. Yes, Multi-Symptom that is Sniffing, Sneezing, Coughing, Arching, Stuffy-head and Fever. It all comes together in a bundle !

A different kind Car Servicing experience

This was all together different car servicing experience then this one where I spent 2hrs by walking on train station, watching kids playing football, visiting fresh farms market and walking around the window shops and This Honda agency charged me $285 for 15000-Miles service.

The Small World

Well It happened almost three times now to believe that "The World is Small, at least Investment Banking–IT world"

The First time I realized this was, when I was quitting the job and informing the manager that I will be joining some another Firm. The Managers replied back with "Well, See you there!" and soon I found that He also joined same firm.

The another incident was, while waiting in Bus Queue I met my old time manager who was working for the same firm for which I was working.

Even thou I am currently off the job market, I do get a random e-mails about current openings from many Consulting Firms. So when I opened one of those e-mail today, I found that the opening is with the same Client and in the same Project for which I am currently working and they wanted(consulting firm) me to apply for same one.

Call it Coincident or What?

We Were ‘In Good Company’

I’ve used Netflix for almost a year, but I can’t recall the movie which I could remember for the years. But yesterday I happen to watch ‘In Good Company’ which I randomly picked from the Local Library turns out to be surprisingly VERY good one. A nicely crafted 109 min blended with melodious sound track playing along.

The thing is there aren’t many movies which deal with corporate world and at same time personal life issues while drawing the fine line between them. The movie deals with various corporate scenarios like mergers & acquisitions, takeovers, impact of down-sizing & layoffs on human lives, employee’s fear of loosing a job in late years of life. Even some where it mentions about a 360 degree Evaluations process.

The movie is delightful to watch due to its humorous handling of such serious subject add-on to that are the funny dialogues between the characters. Few of thems are

about Layoffs:
Carter Duryea: I'm gonna have to let some people go.
Dan Foreman: Why do you say let them go? They don't WANT to go. Why don't you just say fire them?
Carter Duryea: Because it sounds better.
Dan Foreman: Not to the person getting fired it doesn't.

about perfect marriage:
Carter Duryea: Dan, you seem to have the perfect marriage. How do you do it?
Dan Foreman: You just pick the right one to be in the foxhole with, and then when you're outside of the foxhole you keep your dick in your pants.
Carter Duryea: That's poetic.

While watching the movie, you might hear the word 'Synergy' quite a few times. Well, the Film was originally titled Synergy, but changed because a survey administered at various test screenings proved that 9 out of 10 people don't know what the word "synergy" means.

Synergy refers to the phenomenon in which two or more discrete influences or agents acting together create an effect greater than that predicted by knowing only the separate effects of the individual agents.

Corporate synergy occurs when corporations interact congruently. A corporate synergy refers to a financial benefit that a corporation expects to realize when it merges with or acquires another corporation. This type of synergy is a nearly ubiquitous feature of a corporate acquisition and is a negotiating point between the buyer and seller that impacts the final price both parties agree to.

Attacked by Spyware & Adware

Since last two days my computer has been hijacked by Spyware and Adware. Believe me it’s most annoying and helpless feeling you will experience while using your own computer.

Having faced this kind of attack previously, I knew it was a tough & tedious task to win the war against Spyware and Adware. Now, I only wish if I could have remembered the software that I used previously. It would have saved lot of time and efforts. Suddenly, I was in need of software which could perform 'The Job' without costing a dime. The plan was to 'Find and Destroy'

The first in the line was Windows Defender but couldn’t install it due to the missing upgrade of XP service pack- 2. The Microsoft auto-update failed to apply XP service pack-2.

The next one was Ad-Aware Personal from Lavasoft but after running server times in normal and safe mode, it failed to destroy the enemy. I knew I was in deep trouble.

Then the Spybot-Search & Destroy, which could only ‘Search’ in free version and was asking for upgrade to destroy it. I said “Next…”

The Next was, Spyware Doctor which also failed to destroy the enemy after many attempts. It just wasted huge amount of time scanning the computer.

After wasting enough time, It was time for a change in strategy, I found its process in memory which is causing this. I used Security Task Manager, to identify the memory process and deleting it permanently but it failed to identify the malicious process, which might be behaving like windows genuine process. It was too risky to delete window genuine process, which could have disastrous effect on entire operating system causing failure to restart.

The manual process of deleting entries from Registry using Regedit also did not work successfully.

It was time to take a bold decision. The decision was to Remove the entire Internet Explorer. Yes, you heard me correctly. Being a Firefox fan, I knew I would survive without IE for a time being.

The first attempt to remove IE in normal mode failed due to ‘File in use’ error. It was the Safe Mode restart that has completely removed IE.

Finally, I restarted the computer in normal mode, connected with Internet, opened Firefox browser, visited random websites and waited for 5 minute still no pop-up, no flashing banner and that was the moment I felt sign of relief.

I am not sure if I won the war against Spyware and Adware. There might be a process waiting for IE to get installed and start attacking again or the Spyware Plug-In might have got deleted with the Removal of IE. For now my strategy is Just Wait and Watch.

Built to Scale

Sometime unexpectedly you get to see surprising things, Thats what happend this weekend when we stumbled upon the Build to Scale exhibition of Auto, Plane & Boat Model Masterpieces. Certainly, It was treat for the eyes !

Using Picasa Web Albums

I started using recently released Picasa Web Albums feature to share photos with family and friends.

A single click publish button makes it easier to upload multiple photos from your local Picasa album. Previously, I was too lazy to use traditional upload feature for each individual photo and I found that time consuming.

Also the Private album feature allows only your family and friends to see the pictures provided they have authorized link.

Thou I‘ve been using Flickr for public photos but this is the first time I published personal photos on the web. I guess I was waiting for Picasa Web Album.

Swiss Home

While browsing thru some Photo sites, I found this amazing Swiss Style home. The color combination makes it more cozy and appealing.

Visit to the Mansion

Get the Door...Its Dominos !

Previously, It didn’t matter much any Pizza was just Pizza, but after trying out Two different Pizzas each consequentive Friday and having tasted other Pizzas before, We found that Domino is the winner.


Here is the Ranking:

1.Dominos
2.Singas Pizza
3.Little Caesars
4.Papa Jone
5.Pizza Hut

Ride in Lincoln Town Car

I remember in those New York days, After working late hours we use to get a ride back home in these Lincoln Town Car. But today I read that Ford Motor Company will be shutting down the production of these Cars after 2007.

Most of the time, We use to meet our South Asian Fellows in the Drivers Seat. Indeed, It was spacious car with comfortable black leather seats. The 45-60 min. journey use to cut down while listening to 1010 WINS AM Radio station on the air.

My Gym

I am skeptical about the advantage of joining the Gym in this early age, But none the less it seems like a good away to have a Fun at same time they gain strength, balance and coordination.

And I do believe, A youngster's first seven years have a profound influence on the rest of his/her life.

Watching LRM on Big Screen

Many Thanks to our Little One that, He allowed us to watch LRB on Big Screen without any trouble. We entered into Movie Theater with our fingers crossed but came out with relief that we didn’t miss the opportunity to watch such great Movie on Big Screen.

In fact, seems like he also enjoyed the movie, specially he was imitating the clapping and asking for that Birthday Balloon when he saw it on the screen.

Migrating Blog on Beta version

Moved this Blog on Beta version specially to use the Label feature which allows to categories the post. This makes searching easy and gives a good glance by category.

As you see, I’ve already labeled few old posts. Labeling all the old posts will be big project but will surely label future post accordingly. I wanted to have this feature so badly that I had to give up already customized template as this wasn’t supported on previous version.

Restoring previous customization in new template was quite challenging task but being a programmer I could manage it restore it almost. Thou it was all try and error basis due to unawareness of HTML/XML tags.

Another great feature I liked is hierarchical archiving. This archiving style certainly gives more visibility & makes it easy access old posts.

If I am correct, it’s all AJAX technology which heavily replacing tradition html websites, an initiative started by Google.

Winning a Million Dollar on Fake Lottery

For a moment we thought we really won the 1 million dollars

The letter stated

Dear Sir,

You’ve won the third prize in Inter’L Lottery of amt 800,754 Euros (equivalent of 1,014,815 USD) which was played for you by your agent. We request you to collect your prize before Oct 9th thru any of following method A. Cash B. Check C. Bank Transfer . Your agent will receive 6% commission on your prize. (I didn’t mind even giving 10 % commission to that unknown agent)

Please provide your bank details on attached form and mail it back promptly.

Congratulation Once again!

I must acknowledge, even thou I knew It can’t be TRUE; Spontaneously my mind started planning how to spend this money. Even my wife started imaginary packaging bags to go back.

It was that Real. It has nice professional letter with signature & stamp from Board of Director, Attached to it a duplicate copy of lottery ticket with my name printed on it. It was mailed from International address.

But Soon after Googling on the name of Lottery, the Truth came out that It was nicely done SCAM. Beware ! If you get such kind of letter.

My One Liner

Which is the Favorite City of Lalu Prasad Yadav in the US ?
.
.
.
Buffalo !

Two worst things

Two worst things a man can do on the long weekend
1. Stuck up in the traffic for 4 hrs
2. and Visit a crowded outlet mall after that.

Lage Raho Munnabhai

I would like to know what are they laughing at, but certainly just looking at this poster makes me smile.



Today is Sep 1st and Lage Raho Munnabhai is out in the theaters. The Reviewers are praising about it, The Blogsphere is talking about it. After long long time I see movie with real * * * * (out of 5)

Another Rising India article - II

Here is another Front Page Artical about India's Manufacturing Growth from IHT.
( Another Rising India article - I)

First Ride

It's 2 toys in 1: stable walker that helps baby learn to stand and walk, and later, it converts to baby's first ride-on toy.

Celebration Mood at Ganesh Chaturthi

There is something about this picture that I can't get enough of, may be its celebration mood that it captures. Its from Farhan Akhtar's forthcoming movie 'Don' and the song is 'Morya Re'

Tasting Sangria

Tasting a Wine has been due from some time. Today on Team Lunch, I happen to try out Sangria, a Spanish red wine.

Sangria is a wine punch typically consists of a red wine, chopped or sliced fruit, a sweetener such as honey and a small amount of added brandy.

Obviously with above cocktail, One glass is quite enough to knock-out my head, but certainly I would try out next time due to its Punch feeling and freshness.

Ta-Ta ( Bye Bye )

Just to make a note that, Our Little One has learned to imitate 'Ta-Ta' . These are just few signs to remind us that our kid is growing .

Clearing up Movie Backlog

I always prefered watching good movies on big screen but recent changes in the life has made it difficult to catch up with the movie releases. Its no more FDFS (First Day First Show), not even possible to catch up LDLS (Last Day Last Show).
Thou as alternate option which is renting a DVD or watching it Online I've completed watching these

• Phir Hera Pheri
• Golmaal
• Gangster
• Krrish

Still in the list to go...

• KANK
• Omkara
• Ashista Ahista
• Corporate

Now I wish if there were a Movie Theaters, which would show the movie even after they have passed their Release Weeks; for those who couldn't watch during that time.

I wonder if DDLJ is still running in Mumbai's Maratha Mandir cinema after 10th years ?

Live Steaming video at CNN-IBN

I am not sure if I am the last person to discover this but I found that there is Live Steaming video at CNN-IBN, which is almost equivalent to watching it on TV due to its better quality and un-interrupted streaming.

I’ve been hooked to this since Friday specially when cable TV is broken due to scratches on digital card, courtesy of my little one.

August Festivals

• Raksha Badhan on Aug 9th

• Independence Day on Aug 15 th

• Janmashtami on Aug 16th
  

• Ganesh Chaturthi on Aug 27th

The Net is the only source to remind me that these festivals are there.

Visit to Zoo

Amazon Amazing Shipping

Ordered this from Amazon on Aug 7th and Got Delivery on Aug 10th.
Pretty Amazing...huh. Its just encouraging me to do more Online Shopping.

By the way, Got a great Deal.
$17 for Speakers
$40 for Webcam

A New brand Identity for Mumbai Airport

I say a good beginning towards Modernization of Airport. You might see this logo when you arrive at Mumbai Airport next time in future. Its a new brand identity for the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) inspired by a peacock feather, which captures three essential attributes:

• Pride in India
• People and service focus
• Global standards

I hope for the best.