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!

At long last we managed to get a weekend last week. It wasn’t much of a weekend cause I spent a good amount of time working from home. We intended to get our bike work done but last Saturday was the second Saturday of the month and all government offices out here were closed.

Instead we decided to go to Spar in the Oasis mall, which is walking distance from our place. Well, it is walking distance when you are going there, not when you’re laden with bags on your way back.

We ended up doing tonnes of shopping (our highest ever) and had to take a rick back home. The plus point is that now we have a fully stocked fridge with fruits and basic vegetables. We haven’t attempted non-veg as yet.

This has also ensured that I could eat corn-flakes for breakfast for the last three days

On Sunday we decided to go off to the Pizza Hut in Forum for lunch. The new menu has been made available in all the places!

On our way back we dropped in at the computer shop on the way. We finally picked up the UPS, which is an absolute necessity in this place where there is either constant load shedding on repeated power cuts. I also picked up a mouse, but it turned out to be a non-USB one, so will be exchanging that this weekend.

We had a training programme scheduled for this weekend, but it seems to be canceled now. So, hopefully, I will get the road tax for the bike done this week!

Having spent rather exhausting three days in Mumbai, I met up with Sneha, Akshat and Neha for pizzas at the Pizza Hut in Powai.

Was surprised to see a whole new menu on offer. There have been several good additions to the menu, but there have been equally bad ones. Going to check if the menu has been updated in Bangalore as well.

I headed off home soon after dinner. Lil white mouse came over on Friday as well as Saturday. Friday and Saturday both turned out to be extremely rainy days. However, the newspapers claim that it rained everywhere except the lakes!

Lil white mouse and me went over to her house on Saturday evening, so that I could meet the family. Attended mass as well, after quite a while, at the Sacred Hearth Church in Worli, had a quick dinner and set off in the rain back to Andheri.

I wasn’t able to find a single cab but was lucky enough to find a 39 that brought me right up to Nelco, where I caught a 333 back home.

Began packing for returning to Bangalore this morning. It doesn’t take much time when you have minimal dumping to do. Got a rickshaw to the airport. Asked for the row number 6 seat in the airplane, since it was the same row with ample leg space on my journey to Mumbai. Wasn’t disappointed and one of the cabin crew turned out to be the same one on my flight to Mumbai! Decided to grab some grub in the plane itself, since it is cheaper to eat there than at the airport.

The journey was rather peaceful, with minor turbulence. I caught one of the A/C buses from the airport that dropped me off at Koramangala 1st block, where I caught a rick home. Have finally settled in. It’s work day from tomorrow, which means reduced updates out here!

Hi everyone, I am still very much alive. I wish I could write in more often but by the time I get home I am usually too exhausted to get online and blog. Then again with work ruling my life, there isn’t much to talk about.

However, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and luckily for us that is something that holds very true out here as well. So on Monday after work my team went out for a mini outing that involved bowling and a light dinner.

We first intended to go bowling at the Leela on Airport Road, but after reaching there we realized the place was super booked. So instead we went over to Church Street and finished a round of bowling. It has been a

I published last week that I was house hunting all of last weekend and I had managed to successfully locate and finalize a house in Koramangala, 4th Block.

We met the owner of the house on Thursday and finalized the deal. Our plan was to move in on Saturday, which was also the last day of our scheduled stay at the guesthouse.

So, early Saturday morning, after we settled our bills at the guesthouse, we hired cabs and headed to what will become our new home. I hired a Meru cab, which is more easily available here in Bangalore than in Mumbai, where you struggle to find one. It was a nice comfortable journey. At the same time, my goods from Mumbai also arrived. Was a little irritated that the boxes weren?t plastic coated like they were supposed to be and one box had broken open. The bike handle was also bent a bit. Will have to get this fixed. First, I got to get the road tax done. May also get the number changed, but that is at a later date.

After settling in, we decided to shop for mattresses which was a necessity. We first grabbed some lunch at the Pizza Hut in Forum and after that, we went over to Star Bazaar to pick up mattresses. Didn?t find them there, so the next stop was Big Bazaar. We found one there and others had a delivery period of a week, so we dropped that place. The next stop was Total Mall in Madiwala, where we finally purchased two Kurl-On mattresses and got them delivered home by night.

After we got back, we also realized (much to our stupidity), that there is a Kurl-On dealer five minutes from our house! That?s where we will pick up the remaining two mattresses.

Dinner was at The Rendezvous which is also where we had dinner tonight as well. Seems like this is going to become one of our favorite joints. We did tonnes of shopping at the Smart Mart that is located near our place. We are very pleased by the location because almost everything is available here.

Today was yet another visit at Star Bazaar. This time we totally intended to shop and picked up tonnes of goods, buckets and other items, that we fondly refer to as ?restructuring charges?.

I begin another work week tomorrow, which may be more than just five days long.

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?

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.

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.

Lil white mouse came over last Saturday, as well as this.

It’s been a while since I had a pizza, so we ordered two pizzas from PizzaWay, which is where I normally ordered because they are tasty and cheap. This time I was told there was no deal available, but bargained my way into it. Hey! I am a regular customer when I am in town!

Went for morning mass on Sunday. It was a surprise because I normally don’t wake up in time.

Lil white mouse wanted to go shopping. I hate shoppping! But, …

Went over to her place in the afternoon. The place to shop: Bandra

Caught a bus back to Bandra. First destination was Hill Road. We roamed along the streets hunting for shoes and clothes for her. Finally zeroed in on two shops an picked up two.

We decided to visit the Reliance Trendz out there, which opened a little over a month back. The deals are amazing. I picked up a tshirt from there from just 199/- which was well worth it. I am surprised they are still giving deals like this despite running at a loss.

The week at work has been good. My work on the first project has been well appreciated so I am happy. My second project which is in the field of Operations has taken off well. It isn’t something I expected, but it helps me learn other processes at eClerx.

There have been a lot of immediate small tasks which come up on and off so the pace of my second project isn’t as good as I hoped. Have to work really fast in the next two weeks to complete it.

Elective selection is going on at SCMHRD. The entire batch is confused about what to select. I’m taking Finance and Operations subjects mainly, however am still not completely clear on which to take. Don’t want to take on too much of a load.

Foreign language also seems to be compulsory. I really wonder how I am going to manage Spanish

Yesterday and today have been quiet days at home. Lil white mouse came over yesterday. Grabbed a small lunch and then went over to Lucky’s for dinner. Decided to eat tandoori chicken and kababs. The food and the service wasn’t up to the mark yesterday. Went over to Natural Ice Cream on Hill Road

Woke up well past 10.30am this morning, and have been taking it easy at home today. Have to go for mass in the evening and have decided to head back home instead of wandering about the city

Tomorrow is Monday.

The last week has just flown by with most of my time was spent not studying.

Wednesday – Party 1

On Wednesday, we were singing for a Silver Wedding mass. The mass was held at Atma Darshan and the reception was at Le Royal Meridien, for which the entire choir was invited.

Had just dorned my normal formals for the mass, so went home to pickup my blazer as well as drop off the bike (Never drink and drive my mama said )

U. Conrad picked me up and we were among the first to reach the reception. Ate, drank, danced and feasted on food and desert.

Got dropped home a little after 1.30am and came home and crashed into bed.

Thursday – Dinner 1

Spent the entire day at Melody‘s house working on her blog. Convinced her to add adsense (which is performing really bad overall for me currently). Also added some internal pages and top CSS navigation bar (I’m getting good at this).

We went out for dinner to 5 which is near Yoko’s in Santacruz. The place is posh and the food is good, however the service is simply pathetic. It took us 10 minutes to find someone to take our order and then it took another half hour to get served. In addition he messed up the bill, by not informing us for an extra charge. At the end of it we were pissed off.
Expensive places!

Friday – Party

Saakshi threw a “Welcome Home” party for Melody and invited a good amount of the junta from the Indian Bloggers’ scene and their friends. Met a few of them for the first time, while others for the second… well I’m not a regular.

My phone came handy to click a few photos, though the quality wasn’t too great. Anyway, here are a few: Knocked off on request.

Saturday – Lunch and Dinner 2

Met up with Krupa, my ex-office colleague for lunch and a movie. We went off to watch Life in a Metro which tells the tale of several people in Mumbai. The movie was rather slow. Can’t say it was great, can’t say it was bad.

Watched the movie at Chandan in Juhu. It has been several years since I have been to Chandan. The theatre remains the same, but the area surrounding it has developed a lot!
We went to Pizza Hut in Juhu for the late lunch and got a drink free because the guy forgot to put it on the bill.

Lil white mouse came over after work and she stayed for mass. After mass, the two of us went to Lucky’s for dinner. It has been a while since I visited Lucky’s. Tried some different dishes this time which were yummy.

And then there was Sunday

Lil white mouse came over today for lunch. Mom seemed to outdo herself today. Lil white mouse left in the evening and I got down to getting some work done.
Tomorrow I study.