Merry Xmas everyone. We had a quiet day.. productive and good. Watched Pirates of the Caribbean again. Jolly good.

Btw, last night we watched The Last Samurai. Awesome! Must watch! One of the best!

We decided we will go skiing one day this weekend. We'll see..

It looks like a wet weekend here in the bay area and near Tijuana too..

Its XMas eve and we are still planning for the weekend..

Calafia. This is where we have been thinking of heading for our XMas break. A few friends showed interest. It looks to be a great getaway from the cold, wet bay area (I didn't imagine winters like this in California when I lived in England)

As you have probably realized by now, I have completely taken to the Mac.

Older macs interest me, primarily because they are cheap to obtain and they are of much higher build quality than the PCs. And thanks to Yellow Dog Linux, they serve as fine Linux servers. I am yet to try this, but I would love to.

At the other end, I am convinced that Apple has done the right thing with Mac OS X by building it upon FreeBSD. I was surprised to find out that the core of Mac OS X is Open Source and is available to everyone in the form of Apple's Open Source Effort, Darwin. Aqua (the GUI for OS X) is the best OS GUI available anywhere today. Together, UNIX and Aqua are the future of OS Software. Waitaminit, its already available now!! If Apple (or anyone) could get Aqua ported to x86 Unix distros, then it would be a whole different ball game ..

Holiday season on in full swing. Had a great party at Stephen & Rachael's last friday. On sunday we hosted the Parikhs and that was good too. We could have done better with the dinner we prepared though.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, I was able to conference with my parents and brother this last weekend. :)

I have started bringing my iBook to work and that's great. It serves as my email and music machine. I am also usually online in MSN, Yahoo and ICQ.. so I can exchange quick messages with you

So we finally saw Cats last night! It was fun for the most part, a little boring at times. The choreography and dance was excellent, the whole cast was great. It was very different from The Phantom Of The Opera, which we saw earlier this year. Both App and I loved the Phantom. Cats was ok.

Had a good weekend again. Going to the CRC Fundraisers is fun to me so I guess I'm a nerd!

Picked up more pieces in the missing puzzle to upgrading the old PowerBook 5300 and getting online from it. Its become some kind of obssession for me. I hope it will not dissappoint in the end. I still need a 50-pin SCSI terminator and Mac OS 8.5 or 8.6.

It was the big 30 for old neighbour Tom on Saturday. As always, it was a pleasure to hang out with the neighbours and the ex-neighbours.

We also picked up a new computer table from IKEA. It offers a lot more desk space and App has been grateful. Will post a pic when possible.

The Holiday season is upon us and keeping with the tradition we have potluck lunch at work today. It will be followed by a gift exchange. It tends to get a little crazy, I will update you with the rules in a bit.

I just cooked some fresh pasta - tri-colored Tortellini with fried portabella mushrooms and garlic in tomato, mushroom, olive sauce. Smells great if I say so myself. :)

I have been keeping myself busy while App has been in Santa Barbara. Mostly playing around with technology. Last weekend I picked up an old PowerMac 8500/120 and I have been impressed with it. Its got RCA video/audio in and out, runs OS 9.1 and seems to work just great. Now if I can only get a monitor and keyboard for it..

Had a good weekend. Can't post an update right now because I am tied down at work. Apologies but I will have a post for you soon. Hope all is fine with everyone! :)

Alright, I've been dying to give you the scoop!

For my birthday, App got me a new laptop computer. The one I've been using has been acting up and I really needed one. So a new one was a really good present. Better still, its an iBook!!

I have been drooling over the new iBooks since they came out and my wife was sweet enough to get me one.. awww!! ;)

The specs are awesome (I have the 12 inch one). iBook Specs.

Its beautiful.

Happy birthday to me! Thanks for the wishes everyone..

I was sleeping well before midnight. Mahesh/Shuba and Ranjit moved yesterday and we had a long day helping them move. I was completely exhausted by the time I got back home.. after about 9-10 hours on the job.

Ranjit has moved into an apartment in San Francisco. Its a pretty cool place and I think we shall visit him regularly during the weekends now.

For all the smart alecs that wished me Happy World AIDS day, I'd like to remind you that the birthday came first! :)

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.

Happy Halloween!! Did you check out Google's cool special logo today? :)

We are going to a costume party at a friend's today, will try to get some pictures. App is going to be a goth witch and I will be a monk in a robe. Should be fun!!

Its raining in the bay area!! Hopefully will not rain in the night - it wouldn't be too much fun for the kids going trick or treating!!

Adios for today!

And the working week progresses. Life as usual mostly. Last night we helped Janu and Ranju (App's nieces) carve their halloween pumpkins. We also went looking for Halloween costumes. We have a costume party on Halloween night at my friend Cleve's place. I wanted to be in 70's Disco style but that's proving hard to get. I'll probably end up being a Cherokee Indian, App still hasn't made up her mind. We will probably shop today..

Ho-hum, another working week. Last night, the Mrs and I watched Bowling for Columbine, a funny-scary documentary that I believe every sane resident of the United States should see. Coincidentally, Michael Moore has released a bestselling book at the moment and it seems to be very anti-Bush. I am sure it is interesting reading.

Nice weekend! We missed the Flugtag which seems to have drawn a huge crowd (from the pics) but still had a hell of a day in the city (that's San Francisco) y'day. We checked out the new Sports Basement in the Presidio before taking a nice walk down the beach by Crissy Field, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. It was a lovely night in San Francisco, a t-shirt and shorts suited me fine as we had a super-duper sundae at Ghirardelli Square!

We followed baseball on the radio and were delighted to hear as the Marlins won the world series!! Yay, the Yankees lost!!

Today we had an enjoyable wine tasting tour of 3 wineries in Livermore, more about that later as my laptop screen is acting up. Adios! Another working week ahead..

Okay its the day after Diwali. I hope everyone had a Happy Diwali, I took the day off work and just had a relaxed time. Which is why I didn't really log anything yesterday.

No major plans today - just lazing around at home.. but its a wonderful day outside. I might stop by at the Flugtag, which promises to be fun. Of course, the Marlins have a chance to clinch the World Series this evening. As an A's fan, I hate the Yankees. Go Marlins!! :)

Time to carve pumpkins!!

Halloween is just around the corner and we will be carving pumpkins today with our friends Stephen and Rachael. I am still new to holidays in the United States, but Halloween is fun even if you're not a kid. It also starts off the whole festive season, all the way to Christmas and the New Year. One thing's for sure - there are a lot of candies to eat!! :)

Ever wonder why we carve pumpkins?

Addendum: I am also excited about how Apple is doing. The latest iBooks are oh-so-tempting. However, I have already started on Linux and will wait before checking out OS X.

Panther apparently rocks!
Apple (AAPL) strikes me as a good investment right now.

Linux rocks!

Over the last year or so I have become very interested in alternate (non-Microsoft) OS' and their usability. I have been working on Linux for a few months now and I find that is has really matured over the last few years. When I first tried installing Linux about 4 years ago, it was a nightmare and I gave up before going through with the installation. I installed Red Hat 9 on my laptop last month and setup was a breeze, it even picked up my Wireless PCMCIA card with no issues!

Everytime I find one of my favourite programs (or a clone of it) available for Linux, I am gleefully excited. So now I have these programs running on Linux - ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, Real Player, XMMS (Winamp), Evolution (Outlook). Although my laptop still dualboots into Windows and I don't use Linux for regular work yet, I am looking forward to the day when I do!

Well, I thought its worth giving a shot. The folks at home always want to know what I've been upto and my memory doesn't serve me very well. Its time to chronicle my life. Many thanks to Blogger.com (I found them thanks to Google). My first blog entry, I hope this effort will make me realize how I actually spend my time. :) Cheers everyone!