Of COUNTRY and PUDDING...!!!

Well thanks to my 3-months business trip to America - the fact that one has to pay "dollars" to eat Indian food made it('the' food) more "valuable" to me... :)

I wasn't surprised when I even started eating pudding ("KHEER") there...which I never used to like (appreciate?) back home....

This just made me come up with this (but my very own) one-liner:

"COUNTRY is like home made pudding...you REALIZE the value of it when you are 10,000 miles away..."

:)

What's your IMPORTANCE - LOW or HIGH ???

While using Microsoft Office Outlook for managing official emails, I've observed a plethora of people (including myself) frequently using the "IMPORTANCE:HIGH" feature to "increase" the conspicuousness of their emails but HARDLY seen any one using "IMPORTANCE:LOW"....

While I can always increase my productivity by giving immediate attention to "IMPORTANCE:HIGH" emails, I can save my time as well by ignoring the "IMPORTANCE"LOW" emails when I can always find other HIGH priority job - bothways, effectively enhancing my productivity!

Don't you think it's high time that companies encouraged employees to start using "IMPORTANCE:LOW" feature....

Am I DEMEANING YOU here? By IGNORING your "IMPORTANCE:LOW" email?
Not really....I'll get back to you, as soon I finish through my other HIGH priority jobs...

So who's the bigger Egotist here - YOU or ME?

Food for thought?

:)

Cooking Tips - Off the Hook...Part-3...!!!

Although the above shown "Aloo Gobhi Matar" combo looks good, I found that it was not fully cooked when I served it with rice in the first serving / meal. What to do?


Well, to save my subsequent meals - I added more water, chilly powder and salt to the vegetable and heated the mixture for around 10 minutes on "medium" mode - continuously stirring the contents with spoon to avoid any kind of overcooking / burning! I just thought that the heat of water should be sufficient to cook the vegetable mixture to a decent level without overcooking / burning anything. Salt and Chilly was added to avoid diluting the taste of the vegetable because of "extra" water added.

The trick worked superbly! And it saved my DAY (read Aloo Gobhi Matar) !!!


Maybe that's why they say:
"Always use LOGIC,
EVEN if it’s broken it can’t get worse… !!!"

:)



Few tips:

1) Buy "Flour Tortillas" - a good substitute for "Rotis" at US! Use Desi Ghee for taste - it also makes the somewhat hard Tortillas a bit soft, effectively.

2) I found "Nanak Paneer" quite tasty. You can easily get hold of it at Swadesh / Taj store.

Cooking Tips...Day 2...

In continuation with the below article....




Here you see:

Day : Sunday
Chef: Mr. Mukul Pandey
Meal Type: Lunch
Whats on table?
1) Vegetable Biryani (nicely garnished with fried egg)
2) Plain Yogurt
3) Salad (Cucumber garnished with Cilantro)
4) Mango Pickle

My definition of "Vegetable Biryani": Rice cooked nicely with Potato, Pea and Onion. I also added fried eggs to the aforesaid mixture to give a "new" taste...!! (I love eggs)...:)

TIPS:
1) Since I find Garlic tough to peel, I use Garlic mixture which comes in the form of cream here at US. It's better I guess since it blends nicely as it's like a cream!
2) Don't try to EXPERIMENT too much....Just buy PLAIN YOGURT...I once tried VANILLA YOGURT (my friend tried BANANA Yogurt)....None of us wants to recall that terrible taste now...:)

I frequently watch channel "Food Network" - to increase my "appetite"...Just Kidding....Infact, it's a good channel here as they give some really nice tips. Like: To avoid "crying" while peeling onions, use FROZEN ONIONS - that SLOWS down the chemical reaction which produces the gas that makes you CRY, when you cut them...

I still need to learn from some one (God knows who?) the easiest way of peeling onions, I find it tough...:)

Here's another view:

COOKING TIPS....Day 1

Thanks to my 3 months business trip to US....It made a cook out of me....In hindsight, I feel grateful about it...Believe me - cooking a nice meal for yourself is always an instant and spontanous gratification....As also the satisfaction that comes with it...1 friend of mine found this funny as she never thought that guys could think like that about FOOD...While another friend (female) believes that the BEST cooks in the world are MALES...Different people, different reactions and hence that cool HSBC AD....:)

I'm sharing here some culinary tips for people (like me) who would inevitably find these useful when they FIRST START cooking Indian food in US....:)

In the above picture that you see:

Day: Saturday
Meal Type: Lunch
Chef: Mr. MUKUL PANDEY

Whats on Table:
1) Fried Rice
2) Potato / Green Beans / Pea / Corn / Carrots mixed vegetable
3) Salad (Cucumber and Tomato, well garnished with Cilantro)
4) Plain Yogurt
5) Mango Chutney

I was always reluctant to the idea of having CORN in cooked vegetable until I saw it here at US! Believe me - It just peps up the taste nicely!

Tips:
1) They call Coriander (Dhaniya) as Cilantro. I first confused it with Italian Parsey - BEWARE !! They both look similar but taste DIFFERENT!!
2) They call Dahi as Yogurt.
3) You can get MIXED vegetables in nice FROZEN bags, instead of buying them separately. Buying such bags helps you in 1 more way - the vegetables are already cut and shredded into pieces!
4) You'll find many Indian stores like (Swadesh, Taj etc) where you can get Indian spices, Pickle, Chutney etc

Here's another view:












More to come....

:)

CHANGE THE "WAY" YOU DO THINGS !!!

I have put this awesome quote pasted on my office cubicle to inspire me when I'm "low"...-
"If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got!"


...................................................................................................................................................................................................


......Few days back, I was badly stuck in rectifying an error in a script (computer program)...I had struggled for hours to crack it....But NO RESULT...
After hours of frustration, I went for lunch to my Hotel room. Usually, I FOLLOWED the SAME PATH of going to and fro the hotel room...ONLY THIS time I took a DIFFERENT PATH to get back to my OFFICE CUBICLE....SURPRISINGLY, I was able to CRACK the BUG within the next 30 minutes...(after getting back to my cubicle from hotel)

.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

.....In HINDSIGHT, I would like to add 1 more line to the aforesaid quote:

"Depends on you, how you CHANGE your PATH / METHOD to get the NEW result...!!!"

:)

CHANGE YOUR MIND !!!

I heard this song in my favorite movie "Bedazzled" and it instantly became my favorite....Maybe that's why the say - "Like attracts like!"...( :

Change your Mind by Sister Hazel:

Hey, Hey
Did you ever think
There might be another way?
To just feel better,
Just feel better about today

Oh no-
If you never want to have
To turn and go away,
You might feel better
Might feel better if you stay.

Yeah yeah
I bet you haven't heard a word I've said
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough of all your trying
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:

[Chorus]
If you want to be somebody else,
If you're tired of fighting battles with yourself.
If you want to be somebody else
Change your mind, change your mind.

Hey hey-
Have you ever danced in the rain
Or thanked the sun
Just for shining- just for shining
Or the sea?
Oh no! Take it all in
The world's a show,
And yeah, you look much better,
Look much better when you glow.

Yeah yeah
I hope you heard every word I’ve said.
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough of all your trying
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:

[Chorus]

Hey hey-
what ya say
We both go and seize the day.
'cause what's your hurry,
what's your hurry anyway?

Yeah yeah
I hope you’ve heard every word I've said
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough of all your tryin'
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:

If you want to be somebody else,
If you're tired of losing battles with yourself
If you want to be somebody else,
Change your mind, change your mind.
Change your mind, change your mind.

Out of your mind, out of your mind,
Just lose your mind....

PAPPU can't dance !!!

I try to put my observations here with respect to the song "Pappu can't dance saala!" from the Hindi movie "Jaaney Tu ya Jaaney Na".....

I've written down my observations based on the lyrics from this site:
http://bollywood-songs.org/lyrics-%E2%80%98pappu-can%E2%80%99t-dance%E2%80%99-of-jaane-tu-ya-jaane-na/


Now, let's enlist down the ADVANTAGES of "Pappu"-

1) He's muscular.
2) He's popular.
3) He's spectacular
4) He's a bachelor.
5) He's got his own car.
6) Girls are crazy about him.
7) He's got blue eyes and hence looks like a westerner!
8) He wears Rado's watch.
9) He uses Gucci perfume.
10) He was born with a silver spoon in hand!
11) He's rich!
12) He's got many friends.
13) He's hot and smart.
14) His father thinks high of him.
15) He's MBA.
16) He holidays in France.
17) He can play Guitar.
18) He becomes the "cynosure" (center of attraction) wherever he goes!



I JUST WONDER- with 18 SUPERB features enlisted above, does it really matter if "Pappu can't dance"? After all, almost every product (say Mutual Fund, or discount on any product etc) comes with an EXCEPTION condition (represented by *) . The same applies to human beings as well!

Eg:

Buy bike 'X' at very low EMI *

* - Conditions apply!

....................................................................................................................................................


I wish I were PAPPU !

( :


PS=> Perhaps, Pappu needs to SELL himself in a better way! All the best Pappu! ( :

Power of Imagination !!

I always believed that my face was never photogenic...That was the main reason that I never really uploaded my pic on Orkut as the Display Pic (DP)....

But thanks to Microsoft Paint and a little bit of imagination (My almost 1st stint at editing "images")...This was the result of my "image" workout:


Before:





After:








....And then I read: "The power of imagination makes us infinite!!!"


( :

The '20 ml Mouthwash Mystery' cracked !!! (Sequel to the article 'Common Sense' below)

This article is in continuation to the one exactly below ("Common Sense" - The 20 ml mystery of Mouthwash)....

I wonder if somebody from Dr. Reddy's read my article below (just kidding baby!) and came up with a innovative solution for the "20 ml problem of Mouthwash" (btw, they call their mouthwash as 'CLOHEX') -

The bottle is neatly divided to 2 divisions: The upper and smaller one (guarded by the lid) can be filled up with "20 ml" of Mouthwash by pressing / squeezing the lower and bigger division....

Hats Off to the idea!

( :

Common Sense?

I was looking at the "usage instructions" of my mouthwash bottle (Brand 'X') which read as : "Use 20 ml of Mouthwash daily and rinse your teeth and gum....."

This made me just wonder - How could I ensure that I use 20 ml of it daily to rinse my gum and teeth? Additionally, buy some 20 ml container? I looked closely at the lid of the bottle, but I didn't see any "20 ml" label stamped on it!

Eventually, I use the lid of my mouthwash bottle to take out "some" amount for use daily. Practically, I DISCOVER that "this" amount is sufficient enough for rinsing my teeth! Hence giving birth to an empirical assumption that one serving of the lid might be equivalent to 20 ml !!!

Why do such products (I've seen many!) occasionally miss this line : "The lid of this bottle can hold 20 ml of Mouthwash!"

SIMPLE !

( :

Mutual Funds !!!

I find the ADs of almost all Mutual Funds same:

They all start with this line: "We are ranked amongst the best as per present rankings!!"

They all end up with this line: "NOTE: Past performances don't indicate future performances!!"

Isn't that funny?

( :

Can you crack this one ???

I came to know about a nice puzzle from one of my friends: "Can GOD really make a stone which He can't lift Himself?"...It's a CATCH-22 situation: If He can than then he's not a God since he can't lift a stone which He Himself created....If He can't then He's not a God since He can't create such a stone !!!


..........A few days back I came across a funny story in TOI which read: A guy in India underwent a sex-change operation at the insistence of his GAY partner...Since his partner had promised him (or "her" - another CATCH-22 ?) that he would marry her after the sex-change operation.....But to the former's shock - the latter didn't marry her after the operation....


This made me come up with another Catch-22 situation:

Can a GAY really love another GAY after the latter goes for sex-change operation?

If yes...then I doubt that the former was really a gay...(Technically speaking!)

If not...then I pose another one: Is such true love (apparently) dependent just on the gender of the other person?.....etc....


( :

Let's fight against Murphy's Law but still love him !!!

Picture this:


I spend 6 hours straight analyzing a script (a computer program) and finally get some fruitful breakthrough after drinking some 15 cups of Tea...To share this with my client, I start typing out my email to client discussing (flaunting ?) about my "discovery"....I type down everything neatly...And finally, I press the SEND EMAIL button and watch with a sigh of relief in anticipation of a resulting "appreciation" email from Client...But then Lord Murpy's Law ("If anything can go wrong, it will") kicks in and I see the "Sorry, Web Mail server down" error message overwriting and destroying my prized email...whoossssh....If only computers had the "emotions" to understand the perspiration behind my hard work and value it rather than snubbing it with such a dumb error message....!!!


...And then I smile as I feel kinda proud of the fact I've already saved my email in a Microsoft word file. ("I knew this would happen" approach?) That means, irrespective of what happens to the Email server, my prized email remains safely stored in the word file. So, I can just anytime copy+paste that stuff and email to the client....

Can you actually believe that I faced the same situation while typing down this article on my Blog? Coz suddenly my PC loses connection to the Blogspot server...and....blah blah...(Maybe that's what prompted the shrewd Blogspot fellas to come up with "Auto SAVE" feature?)


Well, I guess that's just 1 way of fighting against Murphy's Law....

( :

P.S= > What if my PC crashes down too? Will the email be now recoverable too ? ( :

P.S. => I really admire Lord Murphy and his law...Coz they are damn so practical !!!

Please Explain !!!

I recently finished "Please Explain by Karl Kruszelnicki"...The book had this catchy blurb on the cover page (not typing down verbatim): "Gift this book to someone who needs to refresh humankind's ability to make some sense of the world through science"....

Anyways...There's a chapter dedicated to "Yawning" (my 2nd article on Yawning) in this wondrous book...This Australian Scientist (Dr. Karl) says that (GENERALLY) if a medical patient "YAWNS" during recuperation period after the surgery, then it's a POSITIVE indication that the person is actually recovering well and good after the surgery...Which simply means that the surgery / treatment was effective enough!!!

Well...Applying the "Principle of Reversibility": What if next time when you visited any acquaintance (medical patient) of yours in a hospital : you started making use of above proposition? That is, since almost everybody knows that "Yawning" is quite CONTAGIOUS - why not just YAWN in front of the patient ?....If he / she yawns back after sometime, then maybe (EUREKA!) you have actually increased the probability of success of the operation that the patient must have undergone....Or maybe, you might just have helped the patient recover faster...

Howz that?

( :

A "MISS"ED CALL !!!

Picture this scenario (especially for Vodafone) :
....I wake up at 8:17:56 in the morning and see this SMS on my mobile (probably coz my mobile was switched-off while I was sleeping) :
"You have a missed call at 7:45 AM. To get details send SMS to xxxxx"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mukul muses:
SWEET HEART...Don't you think that's just HALF the INFORMATION?

( :

NATIVE INTELLIGENCE !!

Recently, I came across another interesting site: http://www.nativeintelligence.com/


"Native Intelligence" is a company with the following objective: We offer security and privacy training and awareness courses and complementary products that help make good security behaviors reflex actions for your staff.


The company says that the courses offered are designed to be memorable and motivational. For this they use surprise, unusual images, analogies, examples, real stories, humor, and practical tips...!


Eg: "Security awareness is like the butter in bread, it's better when it is baked in, not just brushed on !!"



The company claims to have "Content" that motivates staff to accept and act on the belief that their behaviors are the most important element in preventing loss.


One of the pages on the web-site reads as: 'We provide up-to-date content. Awareness must be fresh to be effective. A famous Chef once said, "Fish should smell like the ocean. By the time it smells like fish, it's too late." Like fish, security awareness needs to be fresh. We continually update our materials to reflect changes in legal requirements, threats, vulnerabilities, and technology.'

Mukul muses:

- Well, what if the SAME approach is used in colleges and schools in our country?
I guess I HARDLY remember the ENGINEERING concepts that I had learned in my COLLEGE.

How I wish that my TEACHERS were CRAZY...Coz sometimes CRAZINESS can be good...!!!

( :

Bionic Buildings !!!

Just quoting:

"People now live and work in high-rise buildings which depend on artificial energy sources like electricity. In the natural world, insects like spiders use a saliva-made fibre to construct their steely web. Termites build intricate airway systems in their habitat. In the same way, some architects and engineers have turned to nature for inspiration when designing buildings. These are called bionic buildings. They are designed to enhance the efficiency in usage of energy by having a provision for entry of sunrays to reduce dependence on electricity!"


Mukul says: What an IDEA sir jii !!!


( :

OF "POSSIBILITIES"...( :

I found the following joke from the book "Why Men Can Only Do One Thing at a Time and Women Never Stop Talking" by Allan Barbara Pease quite WHACKY:

One day, God calls on Adam & says, "Adam, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I gave you a penis and a brain. The bad news is that I only gave you enough blood to operate one organ at a time."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

......Few days back, I found a contraDICtion:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/where-do-i-hang-this/2006/07/19/1153166459544.html

- This 56 year old Australian guy called Tim Patch, who likes to call himself as "Pricasso", is a famous PAINTER...So wats the BIG deal? Well, this guy actually (HOLD ON) uses his PENIS as a Paint Brush...!! The guy even, sometimes, uses his BUMS to add to the effects...


I guess, CREATIVITY procreates infinite POSSIBILITIES....

THANK GOD that MEN can be CREATIVE !!!

What say?

( :

MILLION DOLLAR BABY !

This boy in UK didn’t have money to goto college...He created a website with 1 web page with 1 image of 1000x1000 pixels and sold the ad space at $1/pixel and made a million dollars...!!!

Here's the HOME PAGE:
http://milliondollarhomepage.com

But I guess to APPRECIATE it, read this FAQ first:
http://milliondollarhomepage.com/faq.php



Certainly : "AN IDEA CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE !!!"

( :


P.S=> Thanks to Aditya Yadav Sir (B.Tech IIT-B) for telling me about this WONDROUS site.

OF EVENTS !

Here are 3 EVENTS in CHRONOLOGICAL order:

1) First this happened:
http://mukulmnit.blogspot.com/2007/10/rashme-fiction.html


2) Then, I saw the now-a-days famous "AIR TEL" Ad with the following punch line:
"BARRIERS BREAK WHEN PEOPLE TALK!"

3) After this, I read the following quote by Edward De Bono:
"Every CREATIVE idea looks LOGICAL in HINDSIGHT!"

Do EVENTS just happen RANDOMLY along TIME axis ? or 1 EVENT "LEADS" TO ANOTHER?

( :

OF YAWNING !

As per some studies: over 55% people YAWN within 5 secs of seeing someone else YAWN.

Also, READING about YAWNING makes most people YAWN !!!


So, did YOU yawn too?


( :

"AUR BATAO" SYNDROME !

Conversation between 2 Friends:

P1—hello
P2—hi

P1—hey h r u???
P2—m fine!!! Wht abt u???

P1—m fine too
P2—cool

P1—so howz life???
P2–gud

P1–hmmmm
P1–aur batao? ( passing the ball to the other side)
P2–hmmm everything as usual

P2–so wht else???
P1–nothing much

P2–ok
P2–aur batao? ( passing the ball to the other side)

And it goes on like this until they give up

Are u also having such conversation with ur frnds, then I guess u r also suffering from ‘aur batao syndrome’ It means ur life is all screwed up following the usual monotonous routine. Probably u need a change in ur life something which is exciting, something which is adventurous, something which really makes u feel gud.

Correct???? yeh sab to thik hai AUR BATAO !!

( :

UNSPOKEN TEARS…!!!

Drop by drop i lost my hope
Oh I climbed so high! without a rope
feels so high n more numb
left all alone...maim n dumb
caressing the past… i past my time
tears fills it over the sublime
they talk to me...silent to others
My unspoken tears with me foreva
salty droplets r they for u?
My words my thoughts r for u…
Yet you don read ma eyes filled with tears
With me It'll remain...
My unspoken Tears...

~ By a friend

Here's her blog: http://i-scabbing-me.blogspot.com/

SOME COOL LINKS !!!

Here are some COOL sites..You'll just love them:


http://yadogg.com/pictures/vinyl-sleeve-heads/

http://www.pgacon.com/KitchenMyths.htm

http://freerice.com/


As per some studies on BRAIN: human beings tend to give more ATTENTION to the first and the LAST thing in any GIVEN LIST...Hence I've put the LESS interesting one in the middle...

ENJOY PEOPLE !!!


( :

THE BLOG READABILTY TEST !

Here's an INTERESTING site:

http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx


This site is called as "BLOG READABILITY TEST"..which means: you can put the URL of your blog on this site and it will show you the "minimum" READER'S level required for reading YOUR blog...

If you are LUCKY (like me) you might get the "GENIUS" tag...and then to FLAUNT it: you can copy the HTML code (for the "GENIUS" BADGE) on your blog so that EVERYBODY knows about it...

The CATCH is: I found that the copied code actually gives LINK to another site which is a PAID one....

SECONDLY...I got this "GENIUS" tag after putting this article on my blog which CONTAINS the URL of the AFOREMENTIONED site (The blog Readability Test site)...

I wonder who's MORE GENIUS - the CREATOR of this wondrous site or MYSELF !!!

( :