Crumpled Nothings!

Yes. Get ready to drool. I ask you..no wait..I dare you to show me someplace better. I wasn't getting any sleep and thought I'd get online, and now I am craving chocolate.

Welcome to "Chocolate by the Bald Man." Max Brenner is a name matched with 19 restaurants that he has opened worldwide in the past six years -- in Australia, Israel, Singapore and the Philippines -- but this is his first in the United States in New York City's Union Square.

This place is a chocolate overload, but I am not complaining. Brenner has re-invented the chocolate culture. What's so special you ask? Let me quote the man himself;

"I believe chocolate for people is not just about taste. It's about memories, about fantasies, about fun. People want the whole chocolate experience. A ritual. So I created a ceremony around chocolate with special cups and utensils."

In his restaurants, hot chocolate is served in "hug mugs". These are oval-shaped cups tapered at one end that are nestled in the palms of your hands so you can drown yourself in chocolate warmth in the bitter New York cold. Coffee comes in "kangaroo cups" that have a pouch or a shelf for chocolate. How cool is that? Innovative.

I browsed almost every page of the menu online and almost every item seems like a recipe from heaven. Some of the items:

Chocolate Pizza Warm thin pastry topped with double melted chocolate chunks and crunchy bits / melted grilled marshmallows

Warm Chocolate Soup Warm dark, white or milk chocolate soup with crunchy chocolate waffle balls, strawberries and marshmallows

Chocolate Mess Warm chocolate cake eaten with spatulas straight from the pan, mountain of whipped cream, ice-cream scoops, chocolate chunks, toffee cream, warm chocolate sauce.

Chocolate Martini House Blend chocolate cream with vanilla vodka and Frangelico. A choice of milk or white chocolate. (FYI: I have had Frangelico shots, often called "Chocolate Cake shots". Love them!)

After-Party Breakfast Warm waffles with fresh strawberries, white chocolate chunks, toffee bananas, creme fraiche, chocolate truffle sauce, maple citrus syrup.

So Google it and explore for yourselves what this Wonka man has to offer.

So Tamz, Pari and PDi....what say? Let's do this in New York this year. I don't want to miss this. You wouldn't either.

Hit me back.

It's not a secret anymore that almost all telemarketers, technical support, customer service and software development and maintenance jobs have fueled a growth boom in call center craze in India.

Since our country is the 3rd largest country whose population speaks fluent English after US and UK, and most skilled workers are educated and have a degree and accept low paying dollars for a more than decent lifestyle living in India, the trade-off is very profitable for companies here in America.

But now seems like its not just the corporate giants taking advantage of the available resources to save a lot of money. American families have jumped on this wagon too. Average American households are utilizing the new industry the Indian labor force has to offer: EDUCATION, specifically American education. We are now tutoring American children in their courses at school, helping them do their homework, making them complete their assignments and being the reason for their success in an American school system - all from the other part of the world in India.

Read more here: U.S. homework outsourced as "e-tutoring" grows

And I don't think we are done yet. I am sure there shall be more.

This one made me think of you Tamz. Back in the day when I dared to wake you up or disturb you while you were napping.



Just poking some fun. You can do the same to me too. All jokes aside, good times.

OMG! This show is surely cooking up a huge pot of stew that smells really really good. You may already know from my TV Hit-List post that I have been anxiously waiting for this show to start. The concept is so brilliant. It starts off with there being a handful of select people just realizing that there's either something wrong with them or they possess the extra-ordinary ability to do things that defy the laws of physics or that does not fit in the definition of 'normal'.

To start a story where these few people are just about to be destined to come together to serve a purpose that is yet unknown, is really going to make this show have a great following (14.29 million viewers tuned in)

The show did so well, that they re-broadcasted the premiere tonight as well. And just incase you missed that, you can "..watch the full premiere episode online OR a Two-Minute Replay to get caught up!"

A look at the characters:

Sendhil Ramamurthy plays Mohinder Suresh. So far, he is a professor at Chennai and talks of theories of genesis, a code that is within a person's DNA that helps them do extra-ordinary things and later that gets passed on to the next generation and so on eventually evolving with time. He just found out his Dad who drives a cab in New York City died, no known reason. His belief (which is true) is that someone killed him for all the research on genesis he had done and data collected.



Claire Bennet is Hayden Panettiere who can never ever get hurt and has a self-healing body. She can jump heights and fall flat on the ground, unlock her dislocated shoulder blades and ribs back into place.
Scene to check out: Jumping from high up tank, pushing her ribs back in, watching her hand heal automatically after being so badly deformed in the garbage disposal, and rescuing a man while running through fire with no burns on herself whatsoever.

Ali Larter from the Final Destination fame plays Niki Sanders, a single mother whose mirror image has secrets.
Scene to check out: Fast but good whacking the whackers (loan sharks/collectors)

Santiago Cabrera is Isaac Mendez. He seems to have a dark hard life and recovering drug addict whose paintings become actual premonitions of future events.
Scene to check out: Not the fire truck scene, no. But the one a little after where there is news coverage of a fire burning that matches a painting he did a few days ago, plus this was the same fire that Hayden ran through.

Recognize this dude on the left. He is Adrian Pasdar who began his career as "Chipper" in Top Gun. He plays Nathan Petrelli, a candidate running for Congress and wants to keep and maintain a good image and keep his rich Mom from stealing just to get attention. He is brother to Peter Petrelli, played by Milo Ventimiglia. Peter keeps dozing off and whenever he gets a shut-eye, he dreams he can fly. His brother just using him to look good in the polls and at the same time he doesn't know what purpose he serves in the world, becomes so frustrated that he actually tries to jump off a building to see if he can really actually fly. But to do that he calls his big bro to show him that he is serious about this, takes a leap and while falling in mid-air is caught by surprise. Not that he can fly. But his big bro apparently can.

Last that I am mentioning, but certainly not the least. Meet Masi Oka, plays Hiro Nakamura and beleives he has the ability to travel through teleporting; that he can actually stop time and reverse it, forward it, and use it to his advantage to by merely thinking of a place and being there within seconds, or by freezing time. Scene to check out: Teleporting from Far East to New York City - Freakin' Awesome. This guy's really normal looks and child-geek like excitement makes his character very appealing.

I press those of you who haven't watched this show to start watching it. It draws you in and is very magnetic.

Really Awesome! I think I am done here.

Sayeed just forwarded this video to me.

Now, depending on how you are feeling, you may either enjoy this or get totally annoyed. If you have kids or are around kids most of the times, the brand spanking new 'Tickle me Elmo' toy will make you giggle till you get teared up.

Otherwise, if you are feeling down in the dumps, or have wrecked your car or just going through a bad time, a red doll is the last thing you need laughing at you.

Me? I am in a good mood. Everyone knows I am a goofball. This made me laugh a bit.

Shake it Up!

How stupid are they. Really? I mean really?

Read This:
"Jihad" car commercial upsets U.S. Muslims

So here's my new acquisition. My first desi shirt. I have been wanting to get one for a while but always debated need vs. want in my mind and plus money was tight as well.

But now, I have looked at some designs online and there's so many good ones out there. I mean desi shirts that will make you proud to be who you are and where you are from. I don't really want stupid designs that just state the obvious anyways, like this one or this one.

What I do like is wacky sayings and other designs that have subtle touches, a hint if you will, of my birthplace and things I do. I can tell you this - Damn proud to be a Mumbai-ite.

Browsing through most of these "wears" online, I realize the prices can add up and they are a little expensive. So my solution to that is maybe get one shirt to add to my collection once per month. This way, its controlled and yes, I am only going to purchase if and only if the stuff's really really good.

Now here's the thing. One can easily take movie titles, famous dialogues said by famous people and slap it on a shirt and sell it at 20-25 bucks a pop. So a shirt like this may be appealing and you will buy it, however, you will get bored of it really fast.

Then there's Desi Flow. Yes, this is my BIL's store, but let me give you a very unbiased opinion, a review if I may - The thing about this store is that every product on the list is the birth of genuine creativity. The provocative, yet wacky phrases on the shirts give this store it's edge over other online desi shirt stores.

You can also visit Paresh's blog and write him a comment. Suggest any ideas or styles /designs of shirts or hats or mugs that you would like customized, and he'll deliver faster than any other stores that are starting to get too big for their britches.

Did I mention that you wouldn't even raise an eyebrow on the prices? Go ahead. Check it out.

I have been away..I know. It just gets hard to now even make time to post. Work has been superbly crazy. I have way too many things happening and now playing catch-up.

Let's see. Yeah, I missed my flight to Memphis coz of traffic last Wednesday. Boss had to go on his own and wing my part of the presentation to the Docs. I was shit scared coz I wasn't given any reactions whatsoever. He calls me from Memphis and says "Go ahead and get back to the office." There is no angry or dejected tone in his voice. I didn't know what to expect.

I come back to work and sure enough, my team is poking jokes at me at this point. After a lot of messing around with me, I finally said.."You know guys, I think I am getting tired of the 'I told you so's'. One of them looks at me, chuckles and says.."We'll be the judge of that". They went on for the rest of the day and I had to take it.

The next day, was our company's annual Unified conference at Holiday Inn. I see Justin there and he was just being himself...talked with me, laughed with me..like nothing happened. He just never brought it up and neither did I. Instead, I was assigned to be the 'buzzer' (explained later) for his presentation at the conference.

Ok so the conference is going on and, just like last year, all departments had to have a presentation for their team and to get everyone in the company know what it is we do and the know-how's of everything. Last year's was really boring. I thought I had seen the worst presentations ever recorded in the history of Corporate America.

Don't get me wrong, the Conference was very informative and I love what we do here for the Emergency physicians' and how hard employees here work to make them happy. It's just that some folks can't present it right. I had seen in this Conference realy poor Powerpoint presenters. Some had just plain slides and over-enthusiastic in their speeches. Some had really corny drumroll and medieval-era trumpets blowing as a background music. Some had excellent presentation slides, which were very well laid out, but their speech is like having a recording tape that you could use to put yourself to bed. So it was lunch-time and I asked Justin.."I think our presentation will be better than some I have seen". I had seen our presentation being put together the day before. He looks at me and says.."No, I compeletely changed it. I woke up this morning and just had a thought in mind, and went with it". I was like crap. Our presentation is going to suck.

He says "Here, come with me..let me show you." Folks I tell you I was amazed. You guys reading are probably like thinking "Dude, its a slideshow". No No. Not this one. Justin had our CIS team's presentation setup like a Jeopardy game show. See, the entire crowd in the hall would be split in 3 teams, RED, BLUE and WHITE and each team would nominate one person to be a contestant. The Powerpoint had slides that were setup as answers and then whichever contestant raises their hand first would get to answer. My job was to see who puts their hand up first, hence the buzzer, see.

See if you are in the IT world and are developing and rolling out systems for your company to use, you would always have an empty house. Don't you hate it when you spend so many man hours to develop something and your co-workers don't use the system?

So Justin thought this was a good way of letting everyone know what systems are for what purposes and why it should be utilized. He played the host and it was such fun. Everyone participated. A lot of ppl didn't know about some of the systems that existed and they had questions too. It was very interactive versus sitting in a chair holding up your eye-lids to a droopy slideshow presenter.

I wanted to post the presentation for you guys to see, but will do that sometime later.

More Work Stuff (See I've been busy):

My PC crashed and got infected with a worm on Friday afternoon, and everytime I logged in, it would crash displaying the Blue Screen of Death and restart itself. It took till Monday, until I gave up and had my Windows XP Platform reinstalled. I couldn't get any work done Monday plus had the IT guy surprised at the fact that I had 36 Gigs worth of files I wanted saved before he reinstalled XP. That took a while.

So I thought, ok..Tuesday (today) I would go to work and knock off all my tasks one by one and crank it out. However, when I went to bed last night, I felt sleepy but couldn't get any sleep. I was tossing and turning like no one's business. Fighting with pillows and throwing them on the floor to get comfortable and then later I got even more uncomfortable without them so got up and brought them back to bed. Then the blanket was just not doing it, but I still needed it...blah blah blah. I got up almost 4-5 times and walked up and down the stairs. Then went down at like 3:40am to eat cereal. I just wasn't getting any sleep. I think my eyes finally got some rest and I may have slept after 5:30am.

Then I woke up and the alram clock was blasting Shakira music. I looked at the clock and HOLY CRAP! It's 9:53AM. I was s'posed to be at work 53 minutes ago AND was s'posed to drop Seher off to work as well. SHIT. I called Seher, and she got a ride from Sayeed. She said she knocked on my door, and thought I was in the shower and she was getting late. So I called work and told them I wasn't coming in. However I got some work done from home, but not a lot.

So now I have twice the work piled up than I usually thought I did and tomorrow I have to really work as fast as FLASH to get my stuff cranked out and be up-to-date.

Ugh!

I can't even begin to describe the adrenaline rush you get from this movie. If you have enjoyed Jason Statham's work in the Italian Job, Transporter, Transporter 2...then this you absolutely must have to see. This film is packed..no really, 'packed' with action...nail-biting sequences, and a little humor. This movie will keep you at the edge of your seat. You facial expressions will change from time to time, sometimes with the "Oh my God!" look, and then then the hand over mouth "Daymmnnn!" look, then the "Jolt back to the seat with a hand-clap" feel...and then the "Oh Shiiit!" look...



The synopsis of the story: Jason Statham has been injected with a deadly Chinese poison that will slow his heart-rate and kill him in about an hour. There is no antidote. There is no medicine. No cure. The only thing that he can do is to buy time and prolong the inevitable. To do that, he has to keep his heart rate really high, which means he has to keep his adrenaline level up.

The scenes in this movie are brilliant backed by really fast tracks laced into it (like, Firestarter by Prodigy). Scenes like the car chase in the mall, the police bike ride in a hospital gown (this one is hilarious too), the Chinatown scene will just effin crack you up (adult-ish, yet comical), the disconnect between him and his girlfriend, and they still love each other.

Here's a clip of the beginning of the police bike scene:



To enjoy the rest of it, you're gonna have to go watch it. You will thank me.

This movie does not stop or slow down at all. It just keeps going and you can't take your eyes off of it. To preview a few of these scenes or view the trailer, just roll this website and let it keep on playing and reloading the next scene.

Crank Official Site

This movie is the bomb. A sure keeper. I could watch it over and over again. Good job Statham - Damn Man!

You know when you leave your computer for a bit and idle mode kicks in...computer detects its time to load the screensaver. Your customized pictures are sliding through, or the themes from your favorite movie/cartoon are being displayed. Cool graphics are changing one after the other. Hold it!

You wanna know something else? Your computer's not idle. No No. Your PC becomes a battlefield. A ground where your icons are trying to claim the "Who's the favorite?" title for the user, which is YOU.

I know what you are thinking.."Sachin, you're not making any sense!" Am I not? Hmm...I'll let you see for yourself.

Screensaver Backstage

Geez, What a day! Work was really crazy busy and my eyes are still seeing lines and cells from staring at SQL tables all day. As I got to work, Justin gave me a task that had to be done ASAP today, since he got chewed out by one of our partner ER Doc in Florida about a recent fumble in the database. So he promised to get it fixed today and I delivered. Job complete around 6:30pm.

After that I stopped at Pier One Imports by the mall to get something for P.Diddy. Today is her birthday and I was asked to join the celebration at Compari's. I got her this real nice pair of desi looking mugs. Cost me hardly anything and looks really good. She's 61 now and I must say...she's probably the healthiest 61 year old I know, and looks 40. Anyways, that went good. I saw Aarzoo after almost 10 days. God I've missed her. She's so precious.

Now I am home and there's no one here. I am in my room flipping channels back and forth between Silence of the Lambs and Scarface. Oh yeah, I finally have Dish hooked up in the room and I am so happy I can watch my shows again. How do people live without a TV? A month of no TV, and I was starting to feel out of touch. Not anymore...I am back in baby!

That's all I have for now. Will post tid-bits and crumpled nothings a little later.

I thought I'd share these with you. There's about a hundred of them in the actual collection on Roadtrip America. I liked a lot of them, but too many to save and upload. So go ahead - have a chuckle.

Alright. Last post before I hit the sack. I frequent some blogs often and one of them is Digital Inspiration. Its not in my nature to post something someone else has already posted on the same day. If so, I normally would just link their blog over. But this I saw on Amit's blog and I just had to post it on mine too. (Hey Amit, you're still getting credit).

Anyhoos, I saw this video of comedian Judson Laipply, who performed a segment called "The Evolution of Dance". His skit is a combination of a continous non-stop dance sequence that starts from somewhere in the 60's until the year 2000. It's a six minute video and 2 minutes into it I was laughing like crazy. Amazing how far generations have come with their dance moves. Wonder what's next?

Enjoy the video and complete song list here.

This is what I call 'Fresh off the stands'. Hah! I wish. Man, things you do when you get no sleep.

Courtesy: Newspaper Generator

Oh BTW, Crumpled Nothings! is hot. Don't roll your eyes. It is. I said it!

She asks "Where do you want it?" and then winks. Out of the four available options I picked the least provocative one, so my friends, family members and other readers don't think I am a sick freak. But when you get a girl who wants to ink herself with your name, then as a guy, you're all in, are you not?




CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO //NOT SUITABLE AT WORK//

Ok, so it's virtual. But Crusty Demons created this cool way of inking anything on this girl on any four places on her skin with a few tattoo designs. The results - Click here to play and find out.

The first thing I do when I sit down at my desk when I get to work is read my feeds on Google Desktop. Every news clip had covered the death of Steve Irwin - who most of us know as "The Crocodile Hunter".




Now I liked Steve. I liked his shows on the Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. I don't really watch these channels that much or at all, but if I fumbled upon it, and Steve Irwin had a show going on, you would just watch it. See, this guy had so much enthusiasm, he was so excited in doing what he did best - learning and telling the world about different animals and reptiles, especially crocodiles. I mean, Steve Irwin would point at a croc and look at the camera and go "Crikey! That croc is so huuuge, it could boite every last bit of ya with one snap. That's 3000 pounds of pressa! (pressure)" You would piss in your pants even trying to do the stunts he pulled off. But see that's the thing. He loved doing it, and you would watch it. Some sort of magnetism there.

He died on Monday as he was spiked by a Stingray. His last moments were caught on videotape (not released), where he was pulling out the big barb out of his chest and as soon as he did, he died the very next minute. That is really very tragic.

So Steve, here's to you: You were great at what you did. You taught us about crocodiles and most other animals faster and better than any school instructor or text book could teach us. You pulled us in with great enthusiasm and excitement and in the process were kind enough to let us poke some jokes at it too. You died doing what you loved. You are the best Croc Hunter we know.

Please read: Article and Videos Here

So I have been trying to make myself feel a little better ever since Cookie left. I think I am a little bit better after speaking with my parents back home. Dad today said that the little one seems much more mature after her trip here.

He said that Cookie now insists on sleeping in her own room and has verbally said that she wants to try and overcome her fear of sleeping in the dark alone. This has something to do with her realizing that in order to be able to decorate her own room, she has to live in it too....thanks to Tamz..this happened. Also, she has clearly stated that she doesn't like things to be repeated to her all the time (you guys wanna guess where that comes from?)and said that she will do her part and doesn't need to be told when to study, and will still get the job done. Additionally, she has given Dad all her money that she has collected on via kharchis so that he can deposit it into her account, and not only that, but asked him for her monthly statements so she can keep track of it. (I think that's a good quality to start developing at the age that she is). Last but not least, she forwarded her scores to both, Tamz and I so that she can keep us updated as to her efforts at school. WOW! Having heard all this from Dad and Mom and how they have noticed and like these changes in her, makes me so proud of her. I am really really happy. So yes, feeling a tad bit better.

I like Pari's advice of taking a trip to go "discover myself". Its just that I am in a completely mega-frugal mode, so I'll save up and then probably see if I can take a short trip around Thanksgiving weekend maybe. But with planning a trip to NY/NJ for Christmas and New Years' and to be able to try and get Cookie here, I think that may now work. But will try...maybe somewhere driveable, like San Antonio, Austin, etc.

Also spoke with Reita Didi today. I heard she had hurt her ankle and since I haven't talked to her in a while, I called her and it was nice catching up. I didn't know she reads this blog. But I am damn glad she does. Message to her: "Have a speedy recovery...and will hope to see you around October if you make it."

Labor Day wekend is really going 'blah'. Have been doing nothing but sitting at home all day, watching tv shows and DVDs. I have to keep it like this for sometime though. I have to try and stay home and not go out much so I can save up for the mega trip planned later this year. I mean cheapest RT tickets I can find so far to LGA is like $330. Ouch! [Priti Di: help find deals. Heard you're the best at it :)]

I am out.

So Cookie's now gone and its become so quiet here. I miss the constant talking and what-not's that she would keep rambling. The last few days that I spent with her after she came from Minneapolis was really just going back and forth P.Diddy's place, going out to eat, movies and home.

We watched Superman Returns (again for me) and also she dragged me into watching Material Girls with her idol Hillary Duff in it. The Madni Family took her out to dinner at Macaroni Grill for a farewell, where she absolutely pigged out on their chocolate cake.

Also took her shopping around at Sam Moon, Stonebriar Mall, then Old Navy, etc. She has got now a brand new wardrobe I think. I bought a couple of vintage t-shirts for Yogesh for his birthday from all 3 of us - Tamz, Cooks and Me. I hope he likes them.

As I said before I hope to bring her back here in December for the "cousins reunion". We'll see how that turns out. Right now I am just blue.

I don't have any plans for this long Labor Day weekend. I think a couple of Seher's friends are coming over to check out the new house tonight and then her family from Houston will be here. I think I'll kill time and go watch movies.

Internet's up at home and wireless kicking bits, so will be posting much from home now, than at work.