MicroSoft has an intriguing website called the Origami Project purported to launch a new handheld device. What can this device be? Macrumors has some suggestions.
The buzz appears timed to steal some of the thunder from Apple's expected new products. Although, there is no hint that Steve Jobs will announce a new iPod device tomorrow, Apple is definitely launching some "fun products" tomorrow - AppleInsider thinks that it will be an Intel Mac Mini and an iPod Boombox and that sounds possible to me. We shall see.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Saturday, February 25, 2006
The Best of Web 2.0
From Designtechnica: "The next generation of the web is here! With new kinds of desktop-like applications being released left and right, how will you know where to go and what to use?"
I use most of these sites already and plan to try the others. AJAX is helping enhance the usability of the web!
I use most of these sites already and plan to try the others. AJAX is helping enhance the usability of the web!
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Some updates
Alright, I didn't get to make a single post all week! I had a good 3 day weekend with Vijai, we went snowboarding back to back days but didn't get to take any pictures, sorry. It was fun times at Kirkwood. I've taken a couple of days to get back to normal and get my head around tasks at work. Last Saturday, App and I went to the Rosenblum Open House event and it was *packed*, I mean really packed. They were pouring a lot of wines though so it was fun, we got a pair of their cool Riedel glasses.
Also, last week was pretty cold in the Bay Area and it even snowed at some higher elevations! It was odd but beautiful seeing snow on the hills around Pleasanton. I wish I had taken pictures.
Congratulations to App on her new job. She starts at Intuit on Monday.
One of the eggs in the hummingbird's nest appears to have hatched, hopefully we'll see a youngling hop out soon.
That's it for now, more later.
Also, last week was pretty cold in the Bay Area and it even snowed at some higher elevations! It was odd but beautiful seeing snow on the hills around Pleasanton. I wish I had taken pictures.
Congratulations to App on her new job. She starts at Intuit on Monday.
One of the eggs in the hummingbird's nest appears to have hatched, hopefully we'll see a youngling hop out soon.
That's it for now, more later.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Livio Felluga's Vertigo
This is the story of a wine, created in Italy by blending 70% Merlot with 30% Cabernet by a winery called Livio Felluga. They call this wine Vertigo and it has become special to App and me.
Here's the history - 3 years ago, on Valentine's day I took App to a special dinner at a nice restaurant called Emilio's. It turned to be among the most expensive dinners I have ever paid for, but it was all for good cause. We were happy and in good spirits, thanks to the good food and the fantastic wine that we picked by chance - a bottle of Livio Felluga Vertigo from 1998. Even to your yet uneducated tongues, it was smooth, full and very good. I took the opportunity to spring out a ring and propose marriage to App (formally) and the night became very special to us. So, these days, we celebrate that occasion more than Valentine's day itself as it is very special.
Back to the wine - during the rest of my visit, we tried to procure the same bottle of wine from local winestores and had no luck.
Afterwards, App managed to get a winestore to special order the same bottle of wine and a month or so later she surprised me with a bottle of Vertigo from 2000. I was pleasantly surpised and thrilled. The wine was obviously younger than what we had tasted and we decided to put in down for a special day.
'Special' day to App was one year later when she started prompting me to open 'the bottle'! After 2 years of disappointing her, this year I quietly planned to open it and sure enough, as we were preparing to head out to dinner this Valentine's, App asked if we were planning to take some 'special wine' with a twinkle in her eye :). So open we did, 'the bottle' and what a bottle it was. The wine was well balanced and heavy bodied, it coated your tongue as you tasted it. I thought it was magnificient. We celebrated 3 years of being together and relished it to the last drop (we finished it the next day, we'd be sauced if we had a whole bottle between the two of us).
Now, if we could find a way to buy another bottle of Vertigo and put it down....
Here's the history - 3 years ago, on Valentine's day I took App to a special dinner at a nice restaurant called Emilio's. It turned to be among the most expensive dinners I have ever paid for, but it was all for good cause. We were happy and in good spirits, thanks to the good food and the fantastic wine that we picked by chance - a bottle of Livio Felluga Vertigo from 1998. Even to your yet uneducated tongues, it was smooth, full and very good. I took the opportunity to spring out a ring and propose marriage to App (formally) and the night became very special to us. So, these days, we celebrate that occasion more than Valentine's day itself as it is very special.
Back to the wine - during the rest of my visit, we tried to procure the same bottle of wine from local winestores and had no luck.
Afterwards, App managed to get a winestore to special order the same bottle of wine and a month or so later she surprised me with a bottle of Vertigo from 2000. I was pleasantly surpised and thrilled. The wine was obviously younger than what we had tasted and we decided to put in down for a special day.
'Special' day to App was one year later when she started prompting me to open 'the bottle'! After 2 years of disappointing her, this year I quietly planned to open it and sure enough, as we were preparing to head out to dinner this Valentine's, App asked if we were planning to take some 'special wine' with a twinkle in her eye :). So open we did, 'the bottle' and what a bottle it was. The wine was well balanced and heavy bodied, it coated your tongue as you tasted it. I thought it was magnificient. We celebrated 3 years of being together and relished it to the last drop (we finished it the next day, we'd be sauced if we had a whole bottle between the two of us).
Now, if we could find a way to buy another bottle of Vertigo and put it down....
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Hummingbird in the neighbourhood
We have a new neighbour expecting a new family!! She is just outside our door and is a really hard worker. This hummingbird has set up her nest in a really unusual spot, in a plant just outside our house. I've seen her humming out and about but Darrell was the one who pointed the nest out to me. I took these pictures on Sunday, check them out. I also spied a couple of little eggs in the nest.
A bit of nature in this bay area suburb :)
A bit of nature in this bay area suburb :)
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Windows Vista Home Page
Microsoft has a nice Windows Vista Page showing the main features of the next Windows. In my small Virtual Machine running the Beta, I haven't been able to try the new cool Aero Glass features but I hope to check it out sometime soon.
In other news, I've been busy watching the Winter Olympics. Surprisingly hooked to TV watching some really cool events. NBC's coverage is heavily focused on the US team's performance and thankfully, they have been doing decently well so far.
India is leading the current ODI series against Pakistan 2-1, yay!
Snow storms are on the horizon for this weekend, so Vijai and I are kicked about this weekend's boarding!
I plan to try taking a bicycle up on the hills behind our house tonight, if I like it I might do it more often.
..and Happy Valentine's Day!
In other news, I've been busy watching the Winter Olympics. Surprisingly hooked to TV watching some really cool events. NBC's coverage is heavily focused on the US team's performance and thankfully, they have been doing decently well so far.
India is leading the current ODI series against Pakistan 2-1, yay!
Snow storms are on the horizon for this weekend, so Vijai and I are kicked about this weekend's boarding!
I plan to try taking a bicycle up on the hills behind our house tonight, if I like it I might do it more often.
..and Happy Valentine's Day!
Friday, February 10, 2006
Winter Olympics are here
I've been spending a lot of time on the couch this week. I've been playing Soul Calibur 3 which I'm finding hard, there was the Grammy's on Tuesday, tonight I'm watching the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics at Turin. I have new found love for winter games this year thanks to my own snowboarding :)
This week has been very warm for us here in NorCal and that means the Sierras got no snow and very warm weather that would make the snow icy. In any case, I am going for sure next week when Vijai comes over so I'm taking it quiet this weekend. Also, I might be getting a cold. Oh well, I'll just watch more TV!
Btw, App and I went to a .NET user group meeting here locally and I got a disc of the Windows Vista Beta. I'm blogging this from IE 7 in Windows Vista, looks cool so far. So now IE7, FireFox and Safari look pretty identical in terms of tabbed browsing, search box etc. I think Safari was first out though.
This week has been very warm for us here in NorCal and that means the Sierras got no snow and very warm weather that would make the snow icy. In any case, I am going for sure next week when Vijai comes over so I'm taking it quiet this weekend. Also, I might be getting a cold. Oh well, I'll just watch more TV!
Btw, App and I went to a .NET user group meeting here locally and I got a disc of the Windows Vista Beta. I'm blogging this from IE 7 in Windows Vista, looks cool so far. So now IE7, FireFox and Safari look pretty identical in terms of tabbed browsing, search box etc. I think Safari was first out though.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Jumping cats!!
Boy these cats are really jumpy! And good job by whoever took the photos :) Take your time, there's about 125 pictures in all.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Super Bowl XL Commercials
Thanks to Google Video, the whole world can watch the best Super Bowl XL Commercials from Sunday. Personally, I liked the Bud Light ads and Ameriquest (missing from Google). Almost every ad is worth watching though. Tell me which ones you liked in the comments.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Ups and mostly downs of learning to snowboard
From the SF Chronicle's Tom Stienstra,
"My board started skidding down backward. Boom! Down he goes. Then sideways. Down. Then forward. Down again!
At one point, I was moving left to right, and then attempted to turn and bring the board around right to left. That was a mistake. I caterwauled head-first 20 feet and came to a stop face down. Fresh powder somehow had caked the inside of my sunglasses. My ski cap was 15 yards away. My breathing was deep and fast from the body concussion."
LOL! I thought this was a pretty good read. App agreed that the article was true to the experience. It's not easy getting started with snowboarding, I was just lucky to have started on a powder day. That made all the falls more forgiving. I'm trying to get App interested in either skiing or boarding so we can spend time with each other on the slopes :)
"My board started skidding down backward. Boom! Down he goes. Then sideways. Down. Then forward. Down again!
At one point, I was moving left to right, and then attempted to turn and bring the board around right to left. That was a mistake. I caterwauled head-first 20 feet and came to a stop face down. Fresh powder somehow had caked the inside of my sunglasses. My ski cap was 15 yards away. My breathing was deep and fast from the body concussion."
LOL! I thought this was a pretty good read. App agreed that the article was true to the experience. It's not easy getting started with snowboarding, I was just lucky to have started on a powder day. That made all the falls more forgiving. I'm trying to get App interested in either skiing or boarding so we can spend time with each other on the slopes :)
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Super Bowl Sunday
It was a good Sunday! We finally managed to eat at the restaurant at Wente Vineyards. I've been wanting to go for a while and App felt up to it today. They had their Sunday Brunch on today and we enjoyed it.
We came back to watch the Super Bowl. The Steelers won that one as expected but Seattle played pretty well. They got some tough calls from the officials but in the end, it was the Steelers' destiny to take home the Lombardi trophy. Their 3rd touchdown was classic - a trick play I'd seen them try a couple of times this season and it worked against the Seahawks. You could see that the offense was having fun at that point. Anyways, good fun.
Bonus, I managed to catch up with Arjun and parents. Between that, the snow, the fine dining and the Super Bowl, it was a very good weekend. Now, I've got another 2 weeks to get through before Vijai comes by for our 3 day snowboarding trip :)
We came back to watch the Super Bowl. The Steelers won that one as expected but Seattle played pretty well. They got some tough calls from the officials but in the end, it was the Steelers' destiny to take home the Lombardi trophy. Their 3rd touchdown was classic - a trick play I'd seen them try a couple of times this season and it worked against the Seahawks. You could see that the offense was having fun at that point. Anyways, good fun.
Bonus, I managed to catch up with Arjun and parents. Between that, the snow, the fine dining and the Super Bowl, it was a very good weekend. Now, I've got another 2 weeks to get through before Vijai comes by for our 3 day snowboarding trip :)
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Another nice snow day!
Well, it was tough at times but the weather cleared out for the second half of the day and it was picture perfect. The snow wasn't the greatest but we had some great runs nonetheless. Also met up with a couple of prospective snow buddies for the future. I finally took my camera along, poor gadget took quite a beating today but having pictures is fun. Here's Darrell with me; there's more on Flickr. Looking forward to relaxing and watching the Super Bowl tomorrow.
Friday, February 03, 2006
The Torrey Pines Zinfest
'Tis the season for Zins. Darrell was the only one who went to the ZAP Zinfest in San Francisco last week. The entry fee of $50 was big enough to deter most of us. They had 200+ wineries pouring Zins there but our little neighbourhood Zinfest tonight had 6 Zinfandels and a Zinfandel Port, still a lot of fun. Of course, we had plenty of babies in the mix too. I've uploaded some new pictures to Flickr if you'd like to check them out.
Heading out to Kirkwood again tomorrow to get some more snowboarding action in. They've had some good snow this week so I expect it to be good. The Sierras have already reported an above average snow season so it has been a good year for passholders. I'm going to try and get some pictures at Kirkwood tomorrow so maybe we'll see more pictures when back. In the meanwhile, you can get ready for Superbowl Sunday. I'm rooting for the Pittsburg Steelers, of course. Have a good weekend, everyone!!
Heading out to Kirkwood again tomorrow to get some more snowboarding action in. They've had some good snow this week so I expect it to be good. The Sierras have already reported an above average snow season so it has been a good year for passholders. I'm going to try and get some pictures at Kirkwood tomorrow so maybe we'll see more pictures when back. In the meanwhile, you can get ready for Superbowl Sunday. I'm rooting for the Pittsburg Steelers, of course. Have a good weekend, everyone!!
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Groundhog's ruling: six more weeks of winter
Happy Groundhog Day!
From Reuters.com: "Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who fans claim is never wrong, predicted six more weeks of winter on Thursday, matching the forecast of professional meteorologists.
'Phil is incapable of error. If he says six more weeks of winter, you can take it to the bank,' said Mike Johnston"
Good news for people holding ski passes!
From Reuters.com: "Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who fans claim is never wrong, predicted six more weeks of winter on Thursday, matching the forecast of professional meteorologists.
'Phil is incapable of error. If he says six more weeks of winter, you can take it to the bank,' said Mike Johnston"
Good news for people holding ski passes!
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
A month's wine - Jan 2005
Here's an idea. Why not store our wine bottles till there's enough to photograph and catalog them so we remember the good wines? It just so happened that our storage area became full after a month so I'll try to do this every month. Here's the first :)
There are the usual suspects from Wente, a great Shiraz from Rosenblum that we have more of and some other one off stuff that I've noted.
Funny thing as our collection of wine gets bigger, we're actually starting to come across bottles that should've been opened a while ago, they are starting to lose their zing. We'll be opening up more of those older bottles this month so watch out for next month's snap!
There are the usual suspects from Wente, a great Shiraz from Rosenblum that we have more of and some other one off stuff that I've noted.
Funny thing as our collection of wine gets bigger, we're actually starting to come across bottles that should've been opened a while ago, they are starting to lose their zing. We'll be opening up more of those older bottles this month so watch out for next month's snap!
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