Christmas travels

As is customary when we do not have a few month old baby at home during Christmas, we went on a long trip.

In our hurry, forgot to wish one and all a very merry Christmas, happy Hannukah.. So, would like to wish you all a belated Christmas and Hannukah. Would also like to wish you all a happy holiday season and a great 2007!!

Our original plan was to go to a quiet place where there is not much to see except a quiet rustic life, not too far from home, without stressing out the kids..

As our partners in crime Cousin family put it, "Solvang" fits the bill on all counts!!

Except, there were two things that were overlooked. First, Guys by definition, just do not believe in this "lets have a quiet time in a hotel" kind of vacation.. They need to be moving, taking photographs in the middle of highways because they have a moral obligation to JPEG some scenery!! Second, Solvang pretty much shuts down at sunset, Christmas eve or otherwise. So you have extremely well decorated streets with closed shops and restaurants which leaves you scrambling for something to do or a place to eat on Christmas eve. Two years ago we were in a similar situation in Zion National park (we didn't even know a Tsunami had hit till we came back to civilization a day later!).

We had a wonderful trip as we(the men) changed the focus of the trip from the "quiet hotel stay" to the "great coastal ride" ! We practically stopped at every major state park on the scenic coastal highway #1, did some hiking, not to mention the photography..

So much was covered in the last three days that it would take a few posts to describe it..

I am going to split it up into a few posts.

1. Sisters at play: Jr. loves spending time with her cousin. This is her first road trip with her cousin and it was a treat to watch them together. I was secretly taking pictures of them (secret photos/videos are becoming my speciality now) and have a small collection..

2. Coastal highway from here to Pismo Beach (in pictures)

3. Solvang by night (replace "night" with Christmas eve at 11:00 PM with no one else on the street except me and Balaji standing in the middle of first street with a tripod!)

4. Things to see around Solvang (Cute places to spend a "quiet day" and take pictures)

5. Limekiln State Park and sunset in Big Sur(a place that deserves a post all by itself).

Stay tuned for the series of posts..

Beta Beta...

I am not singing the Bhagyaraj song..

Beta beta
oh my beta
en aanandham onnodu dhaan..

(son son
oh my son
my happiness is only with you!) for those who care..

I am referring to Beta Blogger.

This harmless screen that said, great things await me when I switch to the beta version by just signing up with my gmail account, turned out to be a mixed blessing.

Beta is not different from the standard version. Except the obvious "republish blog" button is not to be found..

The minute I switched to beta

1. my sidebar went nuts
2. I lost all the original buttons I made (luckily I was able to hold on to my old template and was saved, but I almost got a heart attack!)
3. Worse, my Tamizh blog became )_&)(*^R^(*#^(*^$^(*#^@8 or something to that effect.
All the fonts, the profile everything , gone.. at the click of a button..

Took me an hour last night to put back everything, that too by playing with html (because you dont know what )*)&)(^(*&%&*(^*&%$ was and )_*)(&(*^*&^$%$ was originally!!

Finally, there is some order in my blogs again. My fellow bloggers, before you switch to beta, make sure you copy old template files, especially if they are in a foreign language..

other than that, enjoy beta blogger..

BARR - Chaat Paradise

Had a reader recommend Chaat Paradise! So we decided to go for our evening tiffin last weekend. The place is located at the corner of Grant Road and El Camino Real in Mountain View. It is in the complex next to the 24 hour Walgreens Pharmacy. It is tucked away in a corner of the complex and not visible from the street.

The restaurant is very spacious and has a very nice ambience and is busling with people.

Here are the highlights :





Wait time : 5 minute (resonably crowded for a saturday afternoon).
Food wait time from order : 30 minutes. Real long wait considering our order!
Check time : 2 minutes (Visa Mastercard, didnt check if they take AMEX)
Average price per person : $9
Rating "My wife can cook better".
Service : Below Average

Items sampled : Aaloo Paratha, Samosa, Bhel puri, Vada Pav, Chai.

The paratha was definitely one of the best I have had in the Bay area. These guys have perfected it.

The samosa was also nice. Reminded me of Banaras tea shops. Very tasty but very oily as well.

The Bhel puri and Vada Pav were a Mrs. only exclusive. Her take was that the Bhel puri was good but the Vada Pav was a big disappointment.

Chai was fantastic.

I guess this is one of those places which knows how to make some items extremely well and some other items are a must have in a typical Chaat Menu, but they dont have a handle on these items.

Not once did the people who served us or the ones who took our order or gave our check smiled ! They all looked sad, and reminded me of people working in some sweatshop!

The reasonable tactics for places like this would be to try all the items that other people strongly recommend so you cant go wrong with your order ..

Jr. tasted only the paratha and gave it two "Yummies".

Recommendation : If you know what you are ordering in this place, it is worth it.

One last video...

The trial period on the morphing software ends tonight..

So, one last morph trick before I wrap up. . .





I am glad you liked the previous morph videos.. I got emails that said it looks more like "sun TV opening credits", "Michael Jackson videos" etc..

No one said it looked like the Nijaam Pakku Ad (which I thought was a bad idea to morph faces that have nothing in common..)

Considering my little one is a girl, the resemblence is uncanny.. hope she will take after her mother for her looks as she grows up..

Blockbuster vs. Netflix

As I had posted earlier, we joined Netflix in October. Have been watching 3 DVD's a week, DVD's that came to our door by mail.

Recently found out that blockbuster was giving away a free DVD to Netflix members if they brought our Netflix address label to any blockbuster store(which we throw in the garbage anyway) Blockbuster.

At face value, this sounds nothing but ridiculous ! Last weekend, we got the 24 Season 5 disk 1. San and me watched it and as usual couldnt handle the suspense after the first 4 episodes of 24. So, off I went to the local blockbuster to get the next two disks. At the store there was a long line of people waiting to use the only computer against a wall. I asked the guy at the desk what was going on and he says..

"you get one free DVD if you sign up for blockbuster online". I asked him, does this have to do anything with Netflix and his response confused me.. Then I came home and told San. As usual, she did her detective work and found out that we can get two DVD's free. One for signing up with blockbuster online, and one for bringing over our Netflix address label!!

Now, I thought there was some catch in this whole thing. But when San finally knocked it into my head that this was for real, I realized something profound :

Laziness rules!
Capitalistic Laziness rules better!

A lesson well learnt. Apparently, Blockbuster is upset that they are losing business to Netflix, inspite of their having so many stores. So it appears that they are trying to get business back by using the fact they have stores and an online business compared to Netflix which only has an online business. What is the only weakness in the Netflix setup ? The US Postal service.. If you get a DVD and return it today, it reaches them tomorrow, they ship you a new one tomorrow and you get the day after.. this means you get to watch only on alternate days.. and the USPS does not work Sunday's !!!!

So, Blockbuster, in their infinite wisdom are

1. Trying to increase their online business by making people signup for online accounts (the lure is a free DVD)
2. To make it more lucrative for people who are Loyal to Netflix to defect over (I think loyalty doesnt make any sense in todays capitalistic world.. you are only loyal to your own best interest if you are a customer!), they are giving away another DVD free to netflix people who will try this "total access" idea.

I am allllllllllll for Blockbuster now. They were pricey at almost $4.50 a DVD. But not anymore !

For those who dont know the details here goes.

1. you go and sign up with blockbuster online, same price deals as the Netflix memberships(you get one DVD free at a local blockbuster store).

2. you show them your netflix address label (you get one more free DVD at the store)

3. you get a free trial period (just like Netflix) on the online thing. Somehow these guys at Blockbuster have a online menu with the exact same look and feel as Netflix. I am sure there is some patent violation somewhere, but these are big companies and they can get away with murder! As an inventor, I got pissed with that.. but that is Netflix's problem now to find out how someone else can have the same system of a queue, "add" buttons which look alike etc. etc..

4. you add movies to your queue. And the first movie gets mailed to you the next day.

5. NOW FOR THE BEST PART OF THE DEAL : After you watch the movie, you have two options.

a. Return it by mail and wait for two days to get your replacement (like Netflix.. which means you are without any new DVD for a day!) or

b.just take the DVD with the mailing envelope, return it at the local store, get any available DVD from the store for FREE ! when the online store gets the DVD you returned, your next DVD ships.

Two advantages.

1. You are never out of a DVD at home. There are no dead days because of the US postal service delay.
2. If you are watching serials like 24 and you dont want to wait every alternate day for the next disc, this is the best deal. You put disc 1,3,5 in the queue and pick up 2,4,6 from the store!! Works great.

So, go forth and conquer, my fellow capitalists.. The customer always comes first!

My grandma used to tell me when I was a kid "keerikkum paambukkum sandainna, koothadikku dhan kondattam".. which translates to "if there is a real fight between the mongoose and the snake, it is the charmer who gets to benefit"

This is exactly like that.. If Netflix and Blockbuster fight, WE win!

ps. On the first two blockbuster envelopes we got two coupons for full size PapaJohn's pizza's for 99 cents ! Dont know if it is standard for all the new guys who sign up or if it is some luck of the draw thing..

pps. just noticed that you get one pizza for 99 cents if you order another one full price.. sorry I didnt mention that earlier this afternoon.. still not a bad deal.

Yippppeeee!!