Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. Ours was okay I guess, we had lunch at an indian place and watched a hindi movie - Kal Ho Naa Ho. Had to wait in lines for more than an hour and a half too.. guess its a popular way to spend Thanksgiving for the bay area desis.

The movie was good...very funny in parts. My only gripe will be the way it stretched the sad emotion a lot at the end. Definitely fun to watch.

I was struck that the movie was essentially an american movie that had an indian cast and crew - it was completely set in Manhattan. It could have easily been produced by a hollywood company.. maybe that will happen in the not too distant future.

Indians are biased against homosexuals and this was proved again when in this one song, they show a gay couple kissing. The whole audience let out a collective gasp... I thought the reaction was hilarious :) The makers of the movie certainly exploited the gay sentiment to their hearts content.. you will understand when you see the movie.

We have just been lazing around today - finally used the microwave idli maker that I got as a wedding gift. It works great.. we shall certainly be buying a lot of idli/dosa batter hereon. Going to head out to the Thanksgiving sales and see if I can snag a cheap DVD player for my brother.

Oh, by the way - my brother, Arjun graduated yesterday from his M.I.T course at the University of Sydney. Well, congratulations dude.. we are all proud of you, you postgrad!! :)

As it happens, I did get my old number back. Its back to 925 577 4172. Now that we have number portability, I might keep this number forever :)

My mobile number has changed. New number = 925 577 0163. There is a slight chance I will get my old number back.. will know by this time tomorrow.

It's me!!



Just a picture that App took of me on a lazy Sunday...

Its tuesday, just a day more to go for the 4-day weekend!!

Oops, I didn't realize I hadn't posted in 5 days!! A few things have happened since last tuesday. We have mostly been busy with a new painting!

Bought a reproduction of Van Gogh's Starry Night from eBay. We have been thinking about getting a good painting to hang over our fireplace and I liked this one.

Anyway, after spending $30 on the painting itself, we set to work trying to get it framed. A quick visit to the right stores nearby told us we would have to do it ourselves. Just having them stretch the painting would cost us $60 - it wasn't worth it. So we bought the stretcher bars, stapler gun, frame, clips, wire and set down to work. We found these instructions adequate. A couple of hours spent on the canvas means we now have it framed beautifully. Will try to upload a picture here for you to see.

The weekend was mostly quiet. We had dinner at Rajesh Parikh's on saturday. Had some excellent gujarati food and a good evening. His daughter Nikki is very friendly and cute.

Watched Green Bay beat the SF 49-ers on Sunday.

Finally watched Gladiator last night. Its more than 18 months since I bought the DVD. Don't ask me why. :) It was a good movie too.

Tuesday it is! And the wife is not going to Santa Barbara at the moment so its back to normal life. Michael Jackson is in the news again for all the wrong reasons..too bad, such talent gone to waste. A new CD "Number Ones" with his greatest hits and a new single "One more chance" is out today.

Before I forget, Green Bay kicked Tampa Bay's butt yesterday. I wish I'd seen the game but I got a lot of cleaning done around the house yesterday, no regrets. Read this article. Green Bay is living up to its potential. Too bad about the Philly game.

Dinner last night was great! My entree (prepared with help from App) was Farfalle pasta in creamy white wine sauce with Portabella mushrooms. Yum! We are really lucky in that we live with some great neighbours.

Well, its monday and another working week. I have started today with some optimism, I suspect that is because Thanksgiving is coming up. We still don't have any plans though... I mean, its not like we have family here and we don't really eat stuffed turkey, so its primarily a 4 day holiday for us. Its also a bad time to be on the road, so we are lost on ideas. Hmm!!

Its sunday and the wife is still here, although she is engrossed in her work. The Dinner with Darrell's wines event is on today and I am still thinking about what to prepare for a vegetarian entree. Hmm....maybe I should fall back on good ol' pasta.. at least there won't be any botched experiments. I finished Gone For Good fast, and it was a pretty good novel with a couple of unexpected twists at the end.

We saw the movie Master and Commander : Far side of the world last night. I was surpised to see a queue for the 10:15 show when I got there at around 9:35. The movie was good in it own right, but I don't think it is going to appeal to the masses as much as Pirates Of The Caribbean did. Very well made movie all around, though. You should see it if you get a chance.

I'm reading a novel!! Its been forever and I thought I should keep the habit alive. The book is Gone for good and its interesting thus far. Good reviews on Amazon there.

The wifey's off to Santa Barbara. Its holiday crunch time at her office and she will be off for 8-9 days. Which leaves me to come up with a good veggie entree of my own for this sunday's dinner with the neighbours. Hmm, I'm still thinking!

Alright, before you think that I am already slacking off on blogging... just been a busy last week. In a nutshell, I wasn't impressed with Revolutions. It was good, not upto expectations.

We had 2 really good value wines over the weekend - the Dante 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon and the Montpellier 2000 Syrah. Had a good game of shuttle on saturday. Lunch at Sundar's on sunday was great and very filling. I'm surprised he hasn't put on more weight :)

Work is already proceeding at a good pace and I can't wait for the weekend.

Its sunday morning, we are having a good weekend. Going to Sundar's place for lunch in a while.. should be good, his parents are visiting :)

Updates later.

The Matrix Revolutions movie is out today! Its been simultaneously released on IMAX. Our closest IMAX theater is just a few minutes away and we will be watching the movie there tonight. Its been the focus all day; watched the Matrix Reloaded on DVD to refresh my memory. We will have to be atleast an hour early at the theater to get good seats. Will let you know how it turns out :)

That was a bit of a break! Well, our halloween party was great fun. The weekend went by fast. I was very happy with Green Bay's win over the Vikings!

Winter weather has arrived in the bay area already and its brrr cold out there. Funny that it was hot just a week back.

On saturday we had dinner at Mimi's, which is one of my favourite local restaurants, with Mahesh, Shuba and Ranjit. They have a $1 corkage fee! Later we watched Intolerable Cruelty (2nd time for me, but I enjoyed it). I think Clooney and Zeta-Jones make a good pair.