Finally managed to get all my travel pics under Picasa. This covers all our leisure travel in India for the past few years. Time sure flies.
And here is how the travel log reads
August 2008 Chickmangalur (Karnataka)
April 2008 Pondicherry
March 2008 Goa
April 2007 Udaipur; Jodhpur (Rajasthan)
September 2006 Kufri; Shimla; Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh)
July 2006 Agra (Uttar Pradesh)
May 2006 Wayanad (Kerala)
May 2006 Kovallam; Kumarkom; Munnar (Kerala)
July 2006 Halibedu; Belur; Mysore (Karnataka)
October 2004 Madikere (Karnataka)
You can have a look here
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Google Chrome is out ...
http://www.google.com/chrome
And heck I like it. What exactly?
1. Minimalist UI ala Safari
2. No "menu" bar
3. Good use of title bar for tabs - saved space
4. Seems pretty fast or maybe that's just the late night broadband peaking up :)
5. Great address auto-complete - only pages that you actually typed show up
6. Maintains the firefox short-cuts
7. Simple blue and white theme is nice and soothing
8. Default page rocks - ulti cool use of history
Great to see engineers taking KISS seriously in this day and age of "features"
And heck I like it. What exactly?
1. Minimalist UI ala Safari
2. No "menu" bar
3. Good use of title bar for tabs - saved space
4. Seems pretty fast or maybe that's just the late night broadband peaking up :)
5. Great address auto-complete - only pages that you actually typed show up
6. Maintains the firefox short-cuts
7. Simple blue and white theme is nice and soothing
8. Default page rocks - ulti cool use of history
Great to see engineers taking KISS seriously in this day and age of "features"
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Road Trip - Chickmangalur
Decided to take a long impending break from work this week. So I headed out to Bangalore to catch up with my good friends and travel companions. Considering that it was a long weekend we were really pushing our luck and calling up all the nearby locations for a room. Luckily we didn't find any and decided to take the advice of Bhavin's friend and try out a homestay kindof place out near Chicmangalur. Boy was it wonderful. A beautiful coffee estate nestled up in a small valley sufficiently far away from the hotspots. It is around 60kms from Chickmangalur but the roads are horrendous so be prepared to cover than in 90mins to 2hrs. Since a picture says a thousand words here are a few.
Btw none of us carried our cameras so these were from my phone cam. The trip turned out to be around 5k/person for the 2 days. A bit higher since we drove there. But the drive was beautiful especially since its around now that the paddy crops are planted and the variety of lush green all around could have given disney animators goosebumps.
But the highlight of the trip was the amazing food at the resort. Mangy food always rocks! esp the shevai with coconut milk was the best.
 |
| Chickmanga |
Btw none of us carried our cameras so these were from my phone cam. The trip turned out to be around 5k/person for the 2 days. A bit higher since we drove there. But the drive was beautiful especially since its around now that the paddy crops are planted and the variety of lush green all around could have given disney animators goosebumps.
But the highlight of the trip was the amazing food at the resort. Mangy food always rocks! esp the shevai with coconut milk was the best.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Salut
What a wonderful sight for Indian sport. Finally a presence at the Bejing Olympics that we can be proud of
1. Virdhawal Khade - swimming
2. Saina Nehwal - slowly progressing along - defeated the 4th seed today
3. Bajranglal Takhar - 5th place in the Men's rowing
4. Abhinav Bindra - the gold medalist in 10m rifle - god the replay of our anthem playing in Beijing just killed me.
5. All our boxers and wrestlers - good show Biwani boys.
regardless of the results. these are the true heroes. amazing men and women with determination that supersedes any other. please dont even try to put our crappy cricketers in the same sentence/paragraph/page/book/volume. These Olympians are the heroes that we so desperately need.
Salut!
1. Virdhawal Khade - swimming
2. Saina Nehwal - slowly progressing along - defeated the 4th seed today
3. Bajranglal Takhar - 5th place in the Men's rowing
4. Abhinav Bindra - the gold medalist in 10m rifle - god the replay of our anthem playing in Beijing just killed me.
5. All our boxers and wrestlers - good show Biwani boys.
regardless of the results. these are the true heroes. amazing men and women with determination that supersedes any other. please dont even try to put our crappy cricketers in the same sentence/paragraph/page/book/volume. These Olympians are the heroes that we so desperately need.
Salut!
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
Britain's really got Talent
Last year this little girl, Connie, was just an angel and this year they have a young boy, Andrew, who chilled me to the bones with his singing of Pie Jesu
Britain seems to really have some hidden gems in voices of its kids. Wish the show was telecast here too.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Rediscovering Pondicherry
I have been to Pondicherry 3 times before. Mostly spent my time at my cousin's house out there without wandering out into the wilderness of the small town. Auroville is probably still the only place to visit for an outsider in Pondy. Even after having been there thrice before I decided to chugg along with some friends out there. And as usual we did not think any prior bookings were necessary.
I caught the bus from Hyd to Chennai and I reached there a good 13 hrs later. We caught the local bus from Chennai to Pondy and reached there right in the middle of the blistering afternoon heat. After trying a few places some of us came up with the idea of trying out a resort and lo and behold we managed to land out at The Dune. Another classic choice. The place was just fantastic. Designed by a French architect, partnered up with a desi, the small haven has multiple villas and cottages each with its own theme eg. bangle house, doll house, white house and the list goes on. With tastefully designed rooms and a beautiful beachfront right in front of you there is little that could go wrong. Mind you though, with the open bathroom motif in every house, this is definitely not for the faint hearted either :). The ambience, food and location is simply spot on. The seafood is definitely below par but well I dont think Pondy is that big of a fishing town anyways.
All in all another beautiful part of India discovered, or for myself - rediscovered.
Check out some of the pics here.
I caught the bus from Hyd to Chennai and I reached there a good 13 hrs later. We caught the local bus from Chennai to Pondy and reached there right in the middle of the blistering afternoon heat. After trying a few places some of us came up with the idea of trying out a resort and lo and behold we managed to land out at The Dune. Another classic choice. The place was just fantastic. Designed by a French architect, partnered up with a desi, the small haven has multiple villas and cottages each with its own theme eg. bangle house, doll house, white house and the list goes on. With tastefully designed rooms and a beautiful beachfront right in front of you there is little that could go wrong. Mind you though, with the open bathroom motif in every house, this is definitely not for the faint hearted either :). The ambience, food and location is simply spot on. The seafood is definitely below par but well I dont think Pondy is that big of a fishing town anyways.
All in all another beautiful part of India discovered, or for myself - rediscovered.
Check out some of the pics here.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Blog Statistics
Since I have recently touched the 500 unique visitors per month, with time spent on site != 0, I thought I should post some usage statistics about Desi Fun(da)
Average #users/month (past 12 months) - 300
Most visited entry - Gori Chamdi - Readers Digest Joy
2nd most visited entry - Chroma Store
Search Engine - 100% users coming from Google
Best search term - guavus with 13.6%
Browser - 81% users using Firefox
Geography - 87% from India
A bit about the name
Desi Fun, da - A typical Bangalorean way of saying things
Desi Funda - Meaning Indian fundamentals
[ Desi ofcourse means Indian ]
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
LIC's new avatar
If you know me, I must've given you a pep-talk on LIC. I simply adore this PSU. It does what a PSU is meant to do and does it to perfection. It has been providing returns to the average Joe, aka myself, consistently for half a century now. And to do it with unparalleled honesty and consistency in the public sector arena and that too at such a large scale simply deserves respect.
But the new face of LIC confuses me. The consistent ad campaigns and tv presence is kinda new and maybe something that is required in this day and age of nasty private sector competition (satire attempted). However this is not how the PSU blossomed. Its army of tin soldiers ie. LIC agents are the main propaganda and advertisement vehicle that has helped this company maintain its distinct lead in the insurance sector. Has the strategy changed? I sure hope not. And yeah keep up the good work... none of my policies have matured yet! So work hard too LICians :)
But the new face of LIC confuses me. The consistent ad campaigns and tv presence is kinda new and maybe something that is required in this day and age of nasty private sector competition (satire attempted). However this is not how the PSU blossomed. Its army of tin soldiers ie. LIC agents are the main propaganda and advertisement vehicle that has helped this company maintain its distinct lead in the insurance sector. Has the strategy changed? I sure hope not. And yeah keep up the good work... none of my policies have matured yet! So work hard too LICians :)
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Dzire
Take a look here
It looks like they took the front of the "heart" and the back of the "men are back" cars and stuck them together.
Maruti's latest Swift Dzire has without a doubt gone and dethroned the Mahindra-Renault Logan as the ugliest looking car on the desi roads.
Definitely not desired by anyone I know.
It looks like they took the front of the "heart" and the back of the "men are back" cars and stuck them together.
Maruti's latest Swift Dzire has without a doubt gone and dethroned the Mahindra-Renault Logan as the ugliest looking car on the desi roads.
Definitely not desired by anyone I know.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Best Wishes Madame
To a wonderful person.
You walked down the aisle today
With a smile that said it all
Towards the luckiest guy in the world
May the journey be full of love and joy
Full of happiness and things that keep you smiling
For you may never know, but I'll say
Your smile is the only thing good in this world anyway
Wishing the latest Mr. and Mrs. a wonderful life together. And ofcourse dont forget to name your first-born after me :)
You walked down the aisle today
With a smile that said it all
Towards the luckiest guy in the world
May the journey be full of love and joy
Full of happiness and things that keep you smiling
For you may never know, but I'll say
Your smile is the only thing good in this world anyway
Wishing the latest Mr. and Mrs. a wonderful life together. And ofcourse dont forget to name your first-born after me :)
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