Work, work and more work ensures that a simple person like me doesn’t get time to blog. So, here’s a post that summarizes the last two weeks of my life.

Team dinner

Every quarter the teams out here go out for dinner. Last quarter we went bowling and had a quiet dinner. This time work pressures ensured that we skipped the bowling and just went for the dinner directly.

Dinner was at Jalsa, which is in Marathahalli. I had originally inteded to take the bike to work, but dropped the idea. But, we had enough of bikes and so there wasn’t a problem.

Regarding my bike, the Bajaj service centre really seems to have screwed something up and the pickup has dropped and so has the top speed. Now, am hunting for a local mechanic out here. There are a few in Bellandur and Sarjapur area where I intend to give the bike. Let’s see…

Jalsa is a moderately priced place, designed in a very Indian setting from the times of the kinds of old. I stuck to starters as I usually do when I am out for dinner. Who wants the non-chicken part, right?

Got a lift back home thanks to a colleague who was passing this way.

Weekend Movie and Shopping

Last week, Vincent and me made up our minds, bought the tickets and headed off to watch G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which turned out to be a good movie to watch. Bernard, who was bunking with me for the month, also headed off back to Mumbai, so I once again have my room to myself.

And, last Sunday, we went over to Oasis mall for lunch, followed by shopping at Spar. Whenever we go shopping, we end up spending a bomb

We picked up tonnes of stuff resulting in a very well stocked fridge. Also, got myself a tin opener finally, so its cheese time as well. We picked up a packet of pork sausages as well, but they weren’t as tasty as the ones I get in Mumbai.

Pizza Hut and shopping

We decided to go off to Pizza Hut today as well. Owning a visa card ensures that we get our pizza really cheap and within 600 bucks you can get a pizza, drinks, garlic bread and a Caesar salad.

We dropped into Star Bazaar as well and I have realized that it is a better place to shop than Spar. There are better offers and the prices are lower as well. We did a fair bit of shopping, especially for extension boards. The ones we had already were with two pin plugs resulting in no ground, which isn’t really good for electronics like laptops etc.

Am also hunting for a low end microwave, only for heating purposes. Unfortunately, Chroma didn’t have it either. Any suggestions for those who are from Bangalore?

Tomorrow I plan to get some work done from home. But, tonight, I need to sleep!

Met up with Lil white mouse both yesterday and today for dinner. Both yesterday and today were quiet days spent at home. I’ve been trying my best to recover all the sleep that I missed for so long.

The problem is that the sleep is constantly disrupted as I need to wake up before 10am as the water goes out here. This water problem is a big pain in the a**.

I met Lil white mouse in the evening at the Subway near my place. My once regular joint has become a once in a few months joint.

We had the “sub of the day” which turned out to be the Chicken Meat ball, which was also the first time that I had this sandwich.

And today, we went off to Dynasty. We were rather disappointed by the food out there today. While the spicy crab meat soup was good, we were left hunting for chicken pieces in the chicken schezwan noodles. Took a rick straight home after this.

Tomorrow I have crab for lunch

After a brief stint in Pune to complete some college activities, I came back to Mumbai last Sunday. The primary purpose besides staying home was for a special purpose.

My parents were invited over to Lil white mouse’s house for lunch. I came down from Pune and went over to her place directly, while my parents came from my home.

The food was well prepared and delicious as usual. Everyone spent a good number of hours chatting about all topics under the sun.

We finally left the place post 6pm and took the 39 home. Got home and got down to work immediately. This is what would dominate the rest of the week.

I spent a good portion of last week working on my plugins. I released updated to Contextual Related Posts and Top 10. I also released a new WordPress Plugin called Add to Footer.

Lastly, I’ve taken over development of the highly popular WP Ajax Edit Comments from Ronald.

The last week wasn’t all coding. I spent a good amount of time with Lil white mouse. We managed to catch Pink Panther 2 and also made two visits to Dynasty, our favorite eating joint. We also dropped in to my Grandmom‘s place on Tuesday. Our original plan was to order from Subway. However, the outlet in Bandra wasn’t running the offer that is being run at the outlet here in Andheri.

So, we dropped the plan of Subway and instead ordered chicken tikka and chicken sheekh kebabs from the local joint opposite National College.

Spent all of yesterday at home on account of Holi and coding a brand new version of Top 10. You should see the release post in a few hours. Remember to deactivate the plugin before upgrading.

Also worked on my report for Research and Reporting. Have a submission in a few days. We’ve just be lazy at finishing this. Who said, we don’t believe in JIT ?

Dad and me plan to visit an Amway meet in the evening. I came to know yesterday that I have 100 persons in my network. Can’t take any credit for it. I do plan on buying more of Amway’s products, simply because they are excellent. I’ll probably make a post about this in the future.

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?

We decided last night to go to Mezza9 for dinner, completely forgetting that the place would be crowded given it was Valentine’s day.

We were told about a 45 minute waiting time post 9.30pm and so decided to shift focus to St. Laurn.

Traveling to any place in Pune requires a vehicle and initially they were reluctant to send us a cab. But, eight persons is hard to say no to!

We were there post 10pm and after a bit of pondering we decided to just sit in the restaurant instead of the lounge bar.

Considering that the place was rather empty, we had excellent service. The prices were affordable considering it is a four-star hotel and we drew up a bill of under Rs.4000 in spite of dinner and drinks.

We spent a good amount of time there (nearly two hours), having starters and the main course. I must admit I ate well

We ordered the Reshmi Kebab, Malai Chicken Kebab, Hunan Chicken and Mutton Rogan Gosh. Don’t ask me what vegetarian dishes were!

We got the drop back to campus which was comfortable and convenient.

Today has been World Class Manufacturing day with one last assignment in that subject being completed. The submission is tomorrow.

Got a few blog posts to write today. So, stay tuned.

For some strange reason I took it into my mind yesterday to have pizza. Probably stems from the pact that it has been a long long time since I sunk my teeth into a pizza!

I was initially interested in asking for a pizza delivery from Smokin’ Joe’s, but instead we chose to catch the 7.15pm bus to the Pizza Hut in Aundh. Reached there around 8 and ordered the Golden Surprise.

A few years back Pizza Hut had introduced the stuffed crust pizza, stuffed with sausage or cheese. This was something I would order every time I went there to eat.

Then gradually the sausage stuffed pizza’s went missing and after a while the entire stuffed crusts were unavailable.

Well, Pizza Hut is back with the same, under the new brand “Golden Surprise”.

We ordered the Chicken Supreme between three of us. This was also accompanied by two pitchers of Masala Lemonade, some vegetarian pizza and then a small Chicken pizza (which had more vegetables than chicken!).

After a good deal of eating, we finally, paid up a huge bill and then dropped in to the Natural Ice cream next door. Picked up an ice cream each before we walked back, waited for the last bus and headed back to college.

This post was scheduled for December 1st, but never ended up getting done. Anyway, met up with Lil white mouse came over on the last day of November, the last day of my stay in Mumbai.

We decided to go to Gajalee in Seepz for a sea food dinner. The prices there have already been steep and after the makeover, its gone steeper.

However, must admit that one dish is enough to fill two persons. Ordered a sweet corn chicken soup followed by fish tikka masala and some chapatis.

Caught the 6a.m. Volvo back to Pune, which has been my routine whenever I come here to Mumbai.

Attended lectures in the evening. They are so few that they don’t seem very interesting. However, we have to attend.

Sneha‘s boy was down so we went over to Mezzanine for dinner. The food situation out here seems to get worse by the day and it takes a lot of strength to even enter into the mess. (Now you know why they call it a mess!)

This situation is combated by regular dinners outside. Aditya, Sneha and me went to Tamanna on Saturday and this was followed by the same on Sunday as well and then McDonald’s on Monday.

Was summoned to the Director’s office today and two of us sent to Mumbai for placements pitching activities. Headed over to town for a quick stop at the company and headed back home.

Am going back tomorrow morning. Intend to catch the first bus out of town. Would have stayed more but carried absolutely nothing to assist me!

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.

August is always a high-activity month with a huge number of birthdays and other occasions.

Freshers’ Party

After being postponed several times, the Fresher’s Party finally took place on August 6.

Dance parties aren’t really my favorite and this is usually no exception, especially when the DJ should pay for playing the trash he dished out!

Without doubt, I spent a good portion of my time outside the venue, which was the SIU poolside.

Food however, was better this time, with chicken added to the menu. Needless to say I ensured I ate well.

Below is a photo of me with my date and below that is a photo of five of us in our group.

The Birthday

On 12th, was Sumukhi’s birthday. She threw the party on Tamana rooftop for about 40 of us. Food for me was primarily chicken. (Did I tell you that I avoid vegetarian food?)

Another thing I avoid is dancing free style. I prefer ballroom, the little that I know! Here’s Sumukhi with the three of us roommates.

Anyway, Suchi was the DJ for a good portion of the time until yours truly took over the laptop. Spent the next 45 minutes making people dance! For serious wanna-be deejays out there, Virtual DJ is an amazing software. The demo version works very well for a 21 day period.

Among other stuff

Our area has been facing major power cuts. We had no power this weekend and a good portion of the time the generator was also switched off.

We decided to go off to the city. We had to shop for Sumukhi and also had good time to kill. Went over to Pune Central to shop for the same. IMO, the place is very badly designed and it was horribly crowded being a weekend.

After some shopping, we dropped into Little Italy next door. Little Italy is a completely vegetarian restaurant, but they specialize in pizzas and pastas, so I could survive! The food was decent, service was bad and bill was high

We tramped back into Pune Central after dinner and landed up in Food Bazaar at the top floor. Did some heavy grocery shopping, picking up apples, biscuits, corn flakes and juices. We’re realized it makes more sense to go out there once a week and pickup food instead of regularly visiting Sweety stores in campus.

Ohh, btw, I’m in Mumbai for the next few days

And, have you visited Techtites lately? There’s a new look and regular updates.

How many times we have heard this question. Here could be a few plausible opinions on the same:

BARACK OBAMA : The chicken crossed the road because it was time for change ! The chicken wanted change !

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON : When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure right from Day One! that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn’t about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH : We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY : Where’s my gun?

COLIN POWELL : Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON : I did not cross the road with that chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY : Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON : Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL : The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on his current problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE : That chicken crossed the road because he’s guilty ! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN : To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART : No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS : Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I’ve not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY : To die in the rain, alone.

JERRY FALWELL : Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth? That’s why they call it the ‘other side.’ Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay, too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like ‘the other side.’ That chicken should not be crossing the road. It’s as plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS : Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE : It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES : I have just released eChicken2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2008. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN : Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS : Did I miss one?