It’s my birthday today! With that, I edge just one year away from three-tenths of a century.

And, as a gift to met, I’ve spent a good portion of the night working on a new theme for this blog, one which was long pending.

After a lot of searching I came across Paperpunch Theme by The Theme Foundry which I fell in love with almost instantly.

Paperpunch is a clean and easy to use theme, yet comes packed with some decent free features. You can upgrade to the Pro version which makes life a lot easier!

My plugin Add to Footer definitely made life a bit easier, since I didn’t need to add in a lot of code for my analytics.
However, the theme required a good amount of modification to capture my header and sidebar, pages, comments and other features that I have maintained across themes across several years. Not to forget the ads that help sustain this blog.

Lastly, SexyBookmarks WordPress Plugin does deserve a major mention for it is extremely feature rich and with minimal interference allows you to share content of this blog with your friends through the most popular social networking sites. You are recommending these posts, aren’t you?

I’ve also included a neat little array of buttons at the top of each post, you can quickly share our posts on Facebook and Google Plus.

Until next time… do keep reading and do comment below and tell me if you like this new theme. If not, what can I do to improve it?

And, have you hit the like button at the bottom of this post to add Ajay – On the Road called Life to your Facebook favourites?

Last week I posted the list of movies that I plan on watching over the next 3 months. Am pleased that over the last two weekends (and this one is not over yet), I have managed to catch four movies:

• The Last Airbender
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• The Expendables
• Salt

And, here is the updated list of movies to watch:

• Toy Story 3
• Shrek Forever After
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Piranha 3D
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
• Grown Ups
• Going the Distance
• The Girl Who Played with Fire
• The Switch

I plan on watching either Piranha or Scott Pilgrim tomorrow. So, let’s see.

As for the birthday in the title, I “celebrated” my birthday last Monday. It isn’t much of a celebration when you’re sitting in office till 2am. This is also the first time in several years that I haven’t been home for Lil white mouse’s birthday. Well, next year it will be chutti time.

I love birthdays! Who doesn’t! I just don’t tend to celebrate too many of them, until I met Lil white mouse. As far as I have known, she has made it a point to celebrate her birthdays. This year was no different. Then again, there was a slight difference, that I would learn later in the evening.

Began the Saturday by picking up some chocolates from Monginis and getting myself a much needed shave. After which, I went over to Lil white mouse’s place to help out. Didn’t do much of helping except for the hanging of the balloons and moving the furniture to prepare the house for 30+ guests who would trickle in the evening.

Lunch was at home itself, and my darling made every effort and succeeded in feeding me a few vegetables

I also picked up a 1TB hard disk and a 500GB portable hard disk as well as a new battery for my laptop. I finally have a good 2.5+ hours of backup time, much needed in a city like Bangalore.

The person to come in the evening was Rixon, who was also there in the morning to help out. The batch to come in were Sneha, Arijit, Akshat, Neha and Aditya. Lil white mouse had managed to arrange this surprise for me and managed to invite all my friends. The most surprising of them all was Aditya who flew down from Chennai for the party! Thanks dude!

Well, he did get his money’s worth when they mercilessly beat me up!

The party was in the usual characteristic style, with games, singing and dancing, cake cutting and lots of good food.

Blame it on the coding or blame it on laziness or just lack of time due to other pursuits, but this blog hasn’t seen a personal update for a while.

Lil white mouse and me caught the first day evening show of Valkyrie on Friday the 20th on Suburbia, Bandra. Definitely worth watching once.

Prices of movie tickets are supposed to have been reduced, but I definitely didn’t see that!

Lil white mouse’s sister celebrated her 21st birthday on 10th of February and the party was held on 21st February.

She had a good portion of her family over on that day. Reached there a bit early to assist in the preparations for dinner. I love the chicken, mushroom and cheese pie that Lil white mouse makes. Dinner was excellent and the cake that she made was absolutely delicious

We played one game of passing the parcel and I was lucky (read: smart) to get away with a simple forfeit. Check out the other photos in the album.

I’ve been busy working on my plugins all of last week. The first one to to be updated was Twitter Counter followed by Contextual Related Posts and Open Browser Window.

I’ve an update for a few other plugins lined up as well as one or two new ones in the pipeline. Follow my updates on Twitter or via RSS.

Made my way back to Pune yesterday to complete the Finance Paper that we’ve been working on. Collected a mound of data and now the analysis before we meet the faculty tomorrow.

It’s terrible back here eating the crappy food! Did go last night to Fasoos, so it was a welcome change. I crave for pizza. Talking about pizza, Lil white mouse and me were able to get hold of a great buy one get one free offer from Smokin’s Joes last week

That’s it from my life. What’s happening with you?

Friday at 12am we brought in Sneha‘s birthday by cutting her cake and dirtying her.

After a long day of lectures on Friday, in which we gave two presentations in Strategic Management, we headed out to the city. Sneha and Namrata had finalized on a joint called TC’s in FC Road. We had booked the place for eleven people.

Caught the 7.30pm bus from college which drops us at Atur Center from where we caught rickshaws to the place.

TC’s is decently sized place with a good ambience and service. However, I really wonder why they needed to have the lights fading into various colors!

The prices weren’t that high compared to the other places we have eaten at, but then again, neither were the portions. We were offered 11 tequila shots on the house, a pity only five were consumed.

Then we desperately hunted for rickshaws back to Atur Center and rushed to catch the last bus back to college.

Woke up (or more like was woken up) early Saturday morning as all these folks were off to Alibaug for the weekend. I’m not much of an outdoor person and had tonnes of work so decided to stay back.

Went with Maria and her sister Tina for mass on Saturday. Was asked to and did the Prayer of the Faithful. After mass, we decided to go to Mainland China, which is close to where we had to catch the bus back.

This is my first visit to a Mainland China. The food was decent, so was the service. However, they really need to understand the meaning of the word “spicy”.

The bus back to campus was jam packed, but we were fortunate enough to get seats.

Sunday was a quiet day. We gathered together to bid farewell to Maria, who is the first among all of us to begin her job.

Am really exhausted now and will be hitting the bed soon. Have to still get my hands on photos of the birthday. Will put them in my album.

After a quiet two days at home, I finally ventured out on Sunday evening for mass. I?ve realized that I can spend days at home without evening stepping outside and not even think twice about it. Pizzas always get delivered, don?t they?

Anyway, Sunday the 4th also marked the 28th Wedding Anniversary of my parents and since Dad isn?t here I decided to take Mom out for dinner. However, she chose to order home and so be it.

Dinner was Chicken Manchurian, Prawns Masala and Chicken Fried rice. We tried a smaller new restaurant near my place instead of the regular one I ordered. While the chicken was good, the prawns was terrible. Note to myself. ?Do not order sea food from small places?.

Monday and Tuesday were normal days. Aditya was in Mumbai yesterday on placements work and dropped in after that was done. Took him to InOrbit, Malad whose sheer size had him all amazed.

Got back home, bid farewell to him and got ready for Seema?s birthday party. We were at her place gossiping and chatting till post 10.30pm before I drove back home. Had no energy to make any of the blog posts I had originally planned. Had also decided to make my way back to Pune and so needed to get some sleep.

Caught the second Volvo to Pune. The last time I was on my way back the bus tire was punctured and the driver and cleaner spent a good hour fixing that. Fortunately, today I didn?t face any such problem, though the bus that I missed by a minute broke down on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. After our driver lent a hand, we were on our way.

Reached here in the morning, met up with friends and then got down to making those blog posts. The count of unread posts in my RSS reader is slowly mounting. As is the case of my Gmail inbox which seems to be locked due to Google detecting unusual activity. Now, me not checking my email for 20 hours is characterized as unusual Hopefully, this gets unlocked by tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a long day with a lot of lectures scheduled. We also have a so called Finance paper to work on tonight.

Fourth semester at SCMHRD is one of the most relaxed semesters. We have Neev just around the corner and so I am relatively free. Decided to go to church today. Maria was pleased since she has been after me to do so for a long long time! Am sure my Mom too was pleased.

Today was the feast of Christ the King as well as it happens to be my brother’s birthday. The feast of Christ the King marks the end of the liturgical year. This is usually a big event in my church back in Mumbai. Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. I can finally start playing some Christmas carols

We took the 5.05pm bus to Atur Center and then went to the Food Bazaar at Pune Central to pick up some eatables and other essentials.

Mass at St. Anthony’s in Model Colony was over an hour. However, it was filled with singing, something that I haven’t indulged in a long time.

Met quite a few other Catholics of SCMHRD of both the juniors and senior batch who landed up for mass today.

Caught the 8pm bus back to the campus and grabbed a simple dinner of double full fried eggs in the cafeteria.

We have a company on campus tomorrow morning. Have to attend the pre-placement talks before I decide if I should signup with them or not.

Wish me the best of luck. Will provide details tomorrow or day after. I plan on going home on Tuesday since the rest of the week is relatively free. Also have to pickup my final installment demand draft.

Landed in Mumbai on 11th itself. The visit to Mumbai would consist of a lot of time spent at home, some bank visits, a lot of traveling, a roce, a wedding and a birthday.

Lil white mouse‘s friend Priyanka‘s marriage was on the 15th and as part of our custom, both the bride and the groom have an individual roce which is a traditional function.

The roce was held on her building terrace in Kurla, which required me to ride in terrible traffic out there. Got there very early in spite of this.

Early did mean that I had to wait for a while before the function actually started… an hour later.

The usual dirtying of the bride-to-be took place followed by dancing. We left the place and I dropped Lil white mouse home.

The next day was rather silent. Saturday was the big day of the wedding. Being free in the morning, I decided to head over to Big Bazaar, this time in Mulund. My last two experiences were rather bad. However, since I had Rs. 1,400 in discount coupons, I had to go make and expense. Picked up a black sweather that shall hopefuly assist me this winter. I spent last winter borrowing jackets from Ravi.

Also picked up a salwar piece for Mom, who celebrated her birthday on Sunday.

Saturday evening was the wedding. The reception was held at St. Josephs in Bandra. Lil white mouse’s sister and dad were trigger happy and I was able to collect quite a few images.

For more photos check out the photo gallery.

Stayed over at my grandma’s that evening and convinced her to come back with me on the bike. That would have made an excellent photo

Sunday was Mom’s birthday. Just a quiet lunch to which Lil white mouse came over. She left in the evening.

Spent Monday visiting banks and my barber in the morning and the rest of the day at home.

Caught the first bus from Mumbai to Pune on Tuesday morning and reach here by 10am itself.

Classes began yesterday with a full four hour class from 6.30pm on Advances in Supply Chain, followed by Strategic Marketing and Advances in Supply Chain lectures today. Thus ends the lectures for this week.

Placements is just around the corner and well I kinda tensed. A well kept secret atleast on the blog was my Preplacement Offer from the company I was in for summers, which I rejected last week since it wasn’t up to my expectations. The scene is bad this year, so my fingers are crossed.

I’ve tried to make it a point that I spend my birthday in Mumbai (except last year). It usually isn’t a big affair. I normally celebrate it with Lil white mouse whose is on 15th. The same was the case this year as well.

Went over to her place a little before lunch. The Bus No. 39 is a blessing since the route is from Seepz to Worli Depot. Lunch was not simple, as is usually the case

Was able to grab some sleep after lunch amidst all the preparations that we were involved in for the small evening party. Unlike last year, the party this year was a small, quiet one.

Lil white mouse had few of her friends over. Lil white mouse had baked her birthday cake, which was an extremely delicious chocolate cake with a white chocolate topping.

Dinner was chicken cheese and macronic bake, Ceasar’s salad and spinach pie, all of which were extremely yummy. This was washed down by liquor.

Did I mention that I munched down on tonnes of snacks before that

Dinner was followed by a trifle, which was put together by yours truly. Let’s just say that I ate well

Had plans of staying over at Lil white mouse’s place itself and so, at 12 o’clock we brought in my birthday by cutting the cake. Chatted quite a bit and finally crashed. Woke up late into the morning, which has become kind of custom for me, and which I desperately need to change!

Spent the rest of the day with Lil white mouse who came over to my place to spend time with me and my family.

Sunday was the quiet day spent at home. Watched something on the computer and got my bags packed for the return journey, which was extremely painful and long!

For those interested, I’ve updated my Flickr account with photos of the birthday, freshers’ party and some photos of us in the Admissions Team.

On August 16 around 9.35am, a young woman gave birth to a tubby baby boy. The boy is no longer a baby nor tubby but a young handsome man of twenty-six (OK! I am a narcissus )

My grandmother gave me the well preserved notification in the newspaper on which my grandfather had neatly written the time of my birth. Somethings last forever

Happy birthday to me!