Howlarious!

This is one of my favorite stand up acts. I literally was rolling on the floor, laughing.
Warning: Some people might find it a tad offensive. But then again, it is George Carlin.

My new obssession, starting today!

This one should last even less than my diet/work-out plans Although I must say, I have done good on that front in recent weeks. And that is thanks to a plan drawn up by one of the trainers at our gym who encouraged me to incorporate strength training in my workouts. TriFit LA is a great gym, great people who are very friendly and know their stuff and by far the poshest gym I have worked out at. I love it. If you work at Yahoo! and do not use the gym (Yahoo covers the monthly charge), you are missing out.

OK, coming back to point after a short rambling, I have decided to embark on a “cooking journey”.  I just read a friend’s blog and got inspired ( http://manaliscravings.blogspot.com ). I have been cooking regularly for a while but by regularly I mean once a week, maybe twice. Considering the fact that I am a fairly decent cook, it is criminal to deprive myself of good food when I can cook it myself. Also, it will be cheaper (I am going to keep notes on how much I spend on supplies). The goal is to eat AT LEAST one meal a day that I have cooked.  Today, I am making PAAV – BHAAJI, or to be exact, just the bhaaji. It is among my favorites. An incomplete list of what I want to cook over the next few weeks is as follows. Some stuff I have cooked before, some are going to be new attempts.

• Butter chicken
• Paneer, Peppers, Tomato subji (dry)
• Omlettes
• Sambhar and Rice
• Chicken Biryani
• Simple aamti, bhaat bhaaji
• Masoor usal
• Palak paneer
• Poohe (roasted)
• Soy Subji
• Aaloo Gobi
• Tandoori Gobi (YUM)
• Baked vegetables (Au-Gratin)

Dang, my mouth is watering! Suggestions are most welcome. I will let you guys know how it goes.

And now blasts in Ahmedabad

Seriously sucks.

On a lighter, some-what related note, I saw the most awesome bumper sticker on a car. God, please save me from your followers.

Bangalore bomb blasts

I had a post ready about my favorite Hindi movies but then I read about the series of bomb blasts that rocked India’s IT hub, Bangalore early this morning.  I hope my friends in the area are OK. Thankfully,  the loss of life was not severe (1 person dead according to current reports). However even one innocent life lost is one too many. Hopefully, the people injured and affected by the blasts will get back on their feet quickly.

I do not want to use this as an example to bandy my political views, although I am tempted to. All I will say is that conducting terrorism, aiding it, abetting it, providing monetary support, providing moral support, should ALL be capital offenses.

A little bit of weight training

I was recently advised by the trainer at Tri-fit (my gym) to devote time to weight training in addition to running etc. Very good advice, since muscle building is an important aspect of overall fitness. Just having decent endurance is fine, but muscles help burn fat, so its nice to have a few. This was about 3 weeks ago and I have been weight training every other day and have done a decent job of sticking to it. One BIG mistake though. As is my wont, I started lifting the heaviest weights and doing machines at maximum resistance I could handle. As a result, I have probably gained muscle but look beefier which is the last thing I wanted. So I am going to dial it down a bit in terms of weights, increase the repetitions and incorporate “band” resistance training (more on it tommorow). As always what you eat is very important and I still do not have a good handle of that. But as my friend says, it is all a work in progress

July 12 – Simplicity day

I just learned something new, July 12 is “Simplicity day”. I am a big fan of simplicity. No, make it, I am a HUGE fan of simplicity. In personal life, being simple allows a person to stay happy and content. It makes one less dependent on material things. Not that it is easy being simple. There are too many temptations, too much pressure in today’s society to “keep up with the Joneses” as they say. People spend an entire lifetime buying expensive junk and then paying it off. Hence I am a big fan of both my parents, my grandfather and a few friends who are very simple folks. That too by choice and not circumstance.

For me personally, being simple has a lot to do with being lazy. I am unwilling to put in the hours required to be able to buy a Porsche or an IPhone. Sometimes, even if I can afford something, I stay simple because buying stuff is so much work But thanks to this Laissez-fair attitude, I certainly live a much simpler life than most of my peers. It might be for the wrong reasons but it still has the same benefits which is kind of cool.

I also have very strong views on the importance of simplicity on the work front. In this modern era where so much functionality is available at the touch of a button, it is imperative that engineers and product managers and designers focus a lot on simplicity. The mantra should be don’t clutter the user (of a product, a website, whatever) with too many options. Just present the most commonly used ones in a simple and elegant fashion. By all means, provide full functionality and 100s of features but don’t make them all prominent and in your face. You will just overwhelm the user. Just make the most important ones most obvious.

As far as reading about simplicity goes, read Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography (My Experiments with Truth) and also do read John Maeda’s blog www.lawsofsimplicity.com (especially The Laws of Simplicity). Both are very different but with the same theme of simplicity at the core.

A restuarant review

Yesterday, I had dinner with a friend at a restaurant called Amber in Mountain View, CA. I am fairly critical of the Indian food you get in the US (it is not REALLY INdian food) but I have to say Amber was very, very good. I ate and I ate and I ate and then I ate some more. The ambience is pretty nice (although not super-posh) and the prices are normal by bay area standards. Dinner for the 2 of us including beer and desert was 100 bucks including tip. However, between me and my friend, both of whom were coming off good workouts,  we ate 3 people worth of food

Let us start with beer and appetizers. The Reshmi kababs were very tender but a lot less spicy than I would have liked. THe papadums were great too, they usually are though, at any restaurant. The beer, Flying Horse is one of my favorite beers, very fine and smooth. So if you like smooth, mellow beers this one hits the spot. Both the main dishes was extremely good. We went “all chicken” since I don’t eat red meat. The “Special Kadhai chicken” was real special, very spicy and piping hot. It complemented the smooth, rich, creamy, Butter Chicken which was our 2nd main dish. The nans were soft and tasty. The only slight disappointments were the saffron rice (it was good rice but no saffron to speak of, I hear its super expensive ) and the onion kulchas which were a little dry. The desert was interesting, it was pistachio icecream topped with cooked, sweet vermicilli (called Pista Falooda I think). Was real tasty and quite unique, I haven’t eaten this desert before. Another good thing was that I saw a lot of really good dishes on the menu that I would definitely want to sample at some point later. So a very good reason to go back

Overall, a very good dining experience and definitely worth visting (again and again) if you are in the area. I would give it very high marks indeed.

Update: The phone number is 650-968-7511 and the website is http://www.amber-india.com/open.htm

OK, I wasn’t there, but I saw it :)

One of the greatest joys of following sports (any sport)  closely is that ever so seldomly you will see a match or a game that will blow your socks away. You will feel lucky that you saw it. It will turn into a legend that you tell your family, friends, kids, grand-kids. To this day, every one who watched the Borg-McEnroe Wimbledon final of 1980 talks about it. Now I have my own story to tell. Federer-Nadal, Wimbledon final, 2008. Being a sports fan growing up, I have seen great games, I have seen history being made. But yesterday’s final was above and beyond any sporting event I have ever witnessed, BY FAR.

It was not the fact that it was the longest, tightest match in Wimbledon history. It was not the fact that a 22 year old Spaniard, defending French Open champion, beat the greatest grass court player of all times in the gloom of the English evening. It was not the fact that from 2 sets to love down, Federer kept finding extra gears to keep slugging it out with one of the greatest athletes in tennis, almost winning at the end, but not quite. WHAT IT WAS, was the sheer brilliance exhibited by 2 of the greatest tennis players I have seen. A lot of times you will see tight 5 set matches, exciting matches. But NEVER will you see the quality of tennis we saw yesterday. Incredible winners, very few unforced errors, running down balls and hitting winners deep into the 5th set. It was just phenomenal. Anyone who had the priviledge of watching yesterday’s game and anyone who understands the history of tennis needs to thank Roger and Rafa. They have taken tennis to a new, sublime level that has never been seen before. A 5 setter thriller where the A+ Federer showed up, the A+ Nadal showed and they stayed A+ for the full 4 hours 48 minutes they were on court and Nadal just about managed to squeak through. Also amazing to watch is the grace and maturity with which both champions conduct themselves.

Tennis fans are a lucky lot these days. THANK YOU Roger and Rafa for giving me a tale that I can tell my kids and grandkids. Thank you for the show and thank you for the grace. Sometimes you wish they gave out 2 championships trophies because Roger Federer was not the runner-up yesterday. He won something very important, he won our hearts with his fighting spirit. As did Rafael Nadal whose never say die spirit is becoming legendary.

And if this is a sign of the future (with Novak Dyokovic waiting in the wings), I say Tennis fans, fasten your seat-belts. We are in for a wild ride!

Update: People seem to think I was AT Wimbledon, I wasn’t. I just wanted a cool sounding title Also now that I think about it Federer wasn’t on his A or A+ game during the first couple of sets, he relaxed a bit too much.