The joys of being in a Rut…

There were times when i used to hate the ‘rut’ , getting up – going to work-doing the same job again and again – coming home – fixing dinner – watching tv.. and the same cycle all over again. But recently I have been craving for that, especially since the huge house project that went on for a year and changes with job etc… I never thought i would say this but.. I love the days when i am in a ‘rut’, although they don’t really last long, but I surely enjoy them… and I am sure thats the reason i enjoy them – they don’t last long

 

Finally.. we have micro-payments on Twitter

 

Its like someone read my mind or my blog  (http://amrutam.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/seeing-beyond-the-tweet/). Micro-payments was of the key things  twitter was missing and kept me wondering why Twitter didnt make the move.

 

But someone else has – Tipjoy

 

Check out the post: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/08/micro-blogging-meets-micro-payments-courtesy-of-tipjoys-api/

 

Men and their wandering eyes

Ever noticed what happens when any woman with a decent figure and decently dressed walks across the street? - All the guys on that street will surely have their eyes wander. I’m sure all girls will relate to this and yes, all the guys will say - ” you girls do the same when a guy passes by”. Sorry to break it to you guys, we don’t do it as often as you do and we do it for the cream, not every ‘ass’ that walks past us.

Why does it bother us so much? Well it does, especially if we are walking by our man and his eyes keep wandering all around appreciating whatever is around him rather than pay a little more attention to what’s right beside him.

But the bigger question, which I am still wondering about is… should we really be bothered? ‘Cos we do like it ourselves, when a guy would stop what he is doing and glance at us. It does make me sound hypocritical but its true, but it still bothers me when my man does it more than a few times. Why? I’m still in search for an answer

 

Do you really want to Chrome?

Google Chrome has generated a lot of buzz in the past few days with a great marketing campaign that reaches all the geeks first and also highlights the upsides of the chrome. Full marks to Google for that. There has been a lot of analysis of the browser, comparison with other browsers and speculation around what Google will do with it in the future but the one thing I saw very little discussion upon was the privacy aspect. The following excerpt from the Terms of Use of Google Chrome tells you why I am scared:

“11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license. “

Just one thing I have to say to all those Microsoft skeptics who say that they don’t want to keep their data with Microsoft… Google is no better, in fact in my opinion its worse in this aspect.

 

The Maligners weekend..

It had been 4 years since we – the maligners had spent time together. Although it was not the whole group it was at least the half that could meet vasudha, amrita and myself.. and we enjoyed every bit of it.

Day 1: Vasudha and thakur came into the city early morning around 9:30 by the cal train and of course vasu bitching about how cold it was and the fact that some lady bumped into her for no reason (why do such things always happen to her). We headed home to patch up vasu’s wounds and be covered up for the weather and then went to have some great brunch san francisco style. The food was amazing and we were still the same loud and laughing bunch of girls, reminded me of how we would sit in Kalyan and chow down the Frankie’s . Then we headed to do the touristy stuff, esp. since vasu had this great camera and her great photography skills hanging on her neck. The tour started with the great cable car ride – or must i say the wait for the cable car ride, yeah  we waited for like an hour to get on that thing but it was fun. Gave a great feel of the city, we got off Lombard enjoying at the views and vasu clicking away. Then we started the Long walk, walked all the way from Lombard to the marina seeing the sights and sounds and enjoying the now clear and sunny San Francisco weather. We headed to Girardelli square to have some yummy ice cream and some horrible free pomegranate tea (well it was free so we took as many as we could ) and then we head out to walk towards the golden gate bridge. Yapping, laughing, clicking and making fun of everything .. yeah that’s what we did besides yeah enjoying the sights and sounds. On the way back we had another great adventure with the cable car- the wait, losing our patience we started looking for cabs, having no luck with cabs finally we took the MUNI all the way to market. After walking for almost about 6 hours we were all exhausted, our shoes were killing us we couldn’t walk anymore.. but what do girls do in such a situation – Yes, shop for shoes and thats what we did. Headed down to union square to go to Macy’s and look for some shoes to make ourselves comfortable and then headed home to finally rest our legs. And yes the night ended with the girls getting decked up, hitting a club with some cocktails and finishing it up with some great wine and lots of giggles at home.

Day 2: What do three girls do after waking up early in the morning on a saturday? Yes, watch Om shanti Om .. hehe thats what we did before we cleaned up and went for a quick brunch at tryptich. We had great plans for the day.. NAPA – sterling vinyards, which meant all three of us got decked up and hopped into the car and headed to NAPA.. the drive apart from the traffic was a lot of fun and so was the trip. Except that the tram broke down on our way back and we landed up spending an hour waiting for the shuttles to take us down (we could have practically walked down in that time).. anyways the drive back was great. All we did was sing all the random govinda numbers and wierd songs we could remember like ” jab tak rahega samose main aalooo… “, how do we know all these songs you ask? ahem.. what do you think we did at MSU . We were dead tired by the time we got back, with just enough time to chill, get ready and grab dinner with Rahul and finish our girl weekend in style with some great cocktails

What an incredable weekend, there is such a pleasure one feels after meeting spending quality fun time with old friends.. just priceless. Cant wait for our next reunion

 

Our first BBQ in San Francisco

After a long time, going back and fourth with our schedules we finally managed to organize the long awaited BBQ party at our place in downtown San Francisco and I must say it was totally worth the wait. The preps started from creating the Evite, which i think Shreyas was working on for months , and sending it out to all the people we knew and had gotten to know in the past 4 months. To my surprise, the list came up to about 25-30 people and that got me even more excited. The menu started from being simple to quite elaborate (resulting in me staying up until 3 am the previous night), it included

• chicken tandoori/tikka for the bbq
• fish with tandoori rub
• chicken skewers
• marinated paneer
• lots of fruits
• pav bhaji
• bombay sandwich
• red and white sangrias (which we made twice )
• and a lot of other finger food like chips and dips etc.

.. but the best part was that everyone enjoyed themselves. The crowd started trickling in around 1 and by 2 or 3 we almost had a full house. The weather was just perfect, not too windy and warm. Our common area, which is just gorgeous, was perfect for the party, people could go into the club room if they wanted to be warm or sit on the table by the bbq or play with the kids by the waterfall. Yeah, the kids surely were the highlight, i think they (meera, rayaan and charlotte) enjoyed the open area the most. Although, the bbq’ing started with a few hiccups as we had forgotten the PAM spray, thanks to sameer and vrushali it went quite smoothly esp. with the amazing Margarita’s that Manish kept making (I realized how many i had at the end of the night ..).

Once the food was done it was time for few of us who were prepared to jump in the jacuzzi to do the honors, and it was just perfect. Myself, namita, annette and ishmeet indulged in some great drinks and warm jacuzzi while the rest of the men head upstairs to enjoy the view and some more drinks. Eventually the time came for everyone to start heading back and we had a final round of Chai at home ( it was almost 8 pm by now) and bid goodbye to most of the crowd. After which it was time to kickback and open a bottle of wine over some long conversations among the girls chandu, annette and myself while the boys – ishmeet slept and shreyas finished handing back the keys to the management…. Whew, what a day.. loved it, cant wait to host the next one

 

Whats your kryptonite?

Talking to my best friend the other day it occurred to me – every person has something that gets him/her weak in the keens and feel completely powerless. It is this ’something’ which only you know and if is known by your enemy could be used against you.  This is what makes it important to keep it to yourself, yes we do have a tendency to talk about it with our girlfriends etc. and before we know it we have let out all our weaknesses. But is that something you really want to do? do you want someone to have your kryptonite?