Reality Check

We sit cuddling together in front of the TV, cheering for Schumi as he wins the European Grand Prix. The romance is not yet lost, I think blissfully to myself. Maybe we should go on a trip somewhere in the mountains. No friends. just us. I might even do the weekly grocery shopping alone today as a nice gesture, knowing how much he hates to shop.

Breaking my flow of thoughts, Hubby abruptly says, ‘Remember you promised to make me some tea. Can I have some now?’

I’m aghast, but pout, "You want hug or tea?’ He thinks and constructs his reply slowly, ‘Both’.

I get up to make tea for the most tactless guy I know. "Now get your lazy butt off the bed and get the bags ready to do the shopping."

These are a few of my favourite things...

Pandora totally Rocks...
I’ve been tinkering with Pandora the last couple of days, and I am hooked. For the uninitiated, Pandora is an online streaming music service that suggests additional music based off your initial suggestions and your opinion of what it plays. The operators of the service have catalogued tens of thousands of songs based off distinguishable criteria. The result is effective: in the first hour of use, I discovered several new bands I love based off one song of input.

Further, while a song is playing, you can either tell Pandora that you like the song, don't like the song, or you can add it to your favorites. It keeps track of songs you mark as favorites. With all of this information, your Pandora radio station evolves to your tastes. If you like more than one genre of music, you can add multiple radio channels for each genre. It's just a fun, cool, very likable tool (omigosh, I rhymed again—what's with me today?). Check it out and see what music Pandora helps you discover!

Konfabulator, now Yahoo! Widgets
Yahoo! widgets have completely changed the way I use my computer on a daily basis. For those of you who don't already know what a widget is, they are "little files that can do pretty much whatever you want them to. Widgets can be alarm clocks, calculators, can tell you your WiFi signal strength, will fetch the latest stock quotes for your preferred symbols, and even give your current local weather." The great thing about Yahoo widgets is that you can run as many as you want, but they don't slow down your computer; and of course the best thing is that they are completely free.

For instance, I’ve got a MiniPlayer, a compact and tiny audio player, on my desktop right now that plays music from my PC or the radio whenever I click it. I have a Day Planner that tells me what I need to do today and a Zonal Clock to know the time in different time zones around the world.

Soduku: My latest Addiction
I confess I am addicted to Soduku these days. I do them while travelling to work. I do them at home when I'm watching TV. I do them when I should be sleeping. I can't stop. It's a fixation. I've become obsessive-compulsive about them.

I just discovered Web Sudoku, where there are, seriously, billions of puzzles. In four difficulty settings. All fully printable. I do, maybe, six of these a day at work, when I have actual work I should be doing. On days when I'm bored, don't even get me started. Now I understand why this Japanese brainteaser has taken the world by storm. The only way to get over this game is probably to start the next one, Kakuro, which is supposedly more difficult than Soduku.

Another time pass has been my Rubik's cube....I have re-discovered the joy of playing with it after almost 2 decades, and trying to understand the mathematics behind solving it.

The Week-end Ends...

It’s been a terribly busy week-end albeit extended one with the Labour Day falling on Monday. But I barely realized when it flew past me and here I am once again on the threshold of a new week.

Went for a whirlwind trip to Coorg (also known as the Scotland of India) with hub and his buddies. Had the most fabulous time despite the heat and the crowds. It seemed like the whole of Bangalore had ascended on Mercara. We visited the Abbey Falls, Madhikeri Fort, Valanoor Fishing Camp, Nisargadhama, Talakaveri and the whole nine yards. We stayed at a quaint coffee estate converted into a guesthouse. Madikeri was rather uneventful except for some awesome milkshakes and spats with the local traffic cops for breaking a "NO Entry" sign, which wasn't there in the first place. :)

On the way back, we stopped at the Dubare Elephant Camp, wherein a large part of the fun is just the proximity with the tuskers and lazing in the shade. The most enticing part of this leg of the trip was to bathe the elephants. Here are some of my favourite shots.


















Met up with old buds at TGIFs last night, and noticed something very interesting -

They have this exhaustive cocktail menu. I'm not into drinking, but for a change, decided to drink; I picked something called 'PS - I love you'. The drink lived upto its name. It is like 'Love' itself:

* It comes in really tiny quantities, in tiny containers (relatively speaking).

* It is foul-smelling, in essence, but is masked with edible fragrances... they had to, or no one would buy it.

* It is over-sweet in a thick, viscous sort of way, but the sweetness is over-emphasized to mask the extreme bitterness of at least one of the ingredients.

* It is pink!

* Once you have tasted it, you are glad there's so little of it... you'd get very sick if you consumed large doses of this weird concoction.

You look at what the others are having - larger, less bitter, smoother, watered-down.. and you always, always, regret not having made better, intuitive choices.