I got a doggy!

                                          Click me
This little thing waves it's head. And moves his ears. You can wag his tail manually, and it roars! I makes those cute sounds of little doggies...!
It has 8 LEDs on its head each of which can take 7 different colors! If you wave your hand over it's head, it will wave it's head, sound happy and blink lights at you.
It can play music, and its called the i-Dog. If it does not get music for long...it makes crying noises, waves heads, flashes lights. Otherwise, when it does...it dances and brightens to the tune of the music.

Mask of Zorro 2

As always the sequels is not as entertaining as the 'prequel of the sequel' :)

The legendary Zorro is struck by the real world...he has family problems!

To me it seems Mr. Banderas has gained some weight...his double chin was more than obvious. Even his hair din't seem so real...a wig on zorro eh! Antonio was still able to give some noticeable action scenes (or maybe it was just his stunt double...).

Catherine was looking beautiful as ever. Her 'colgate' smile even more evident will all that makeup.

On a 1 to 10, i would give the movie a 5.5. It could have done better with more scenes with humour. I liked the role of Zorro's kid. He had a small but strong part in a sense.
Hey when i saw soap, i knew it was TNT. Yeah, i was attentive in chemistry...sometimes!

I had a jumbo coke. Long time since i had done that. (so much for my determination to not drink too much black soda :p)

lost in translation

Here translation refers to XMAT, CRE, SCD, itemset, PCD, Trena, Dave, Mike, Anita.
This combination is deadly on any giveen day. None of above people or machines can work together on any given day!
Lol! I dunno what to do about these groups (i am not supposed to take registered names here!). Each of them displays a willingness contradictory to the other. It's pretty amusing.
It's good to know that all of them want me, no Need Me, to be here for a long time...but that's not because of my great deeds...but because i'm the little connecting link between the groups...for the R5 project work, i'm taking technical advise from one, working on code owned by someone else, working for a group within the company iteself, my work being monitored by a person from some other group within the company. i don't have a project lead here, am on my own (btw, dats d good part).
bah!
gotta go.

golfing in the rains

woke up at 1 this sunday. Was rubbing my eyes with lack of sleep considering that i slept at 3:30am the same day. ate something had a quick bath...spoke to Vasant ninan after a long time. (this guy is in Missisippi these days...was temporarily transferred there, now alone with lack of company. still hope to meeting him sometime in Detroit!)
Then it struck me...i gotta play golf today! looked up the net. And the gang of three took off.
It was raining slightly, but it did not matter :) we were going to a driving range. We took 3 jumbo buckets (the ones with 120-130 balls in it) and shot them out in about an hour and a half.

All the hardwork was surprising satisfying. i had played golf for the first time.
will go out and do it again this weekend, since i'll be here.

Planning to be in Greenville or Washington D.C. the next weekend. can't decide which one as of now.

Transporter 2

Now this one is gonna get a rating of 4* from me. If you've already seen it, you might be wondering that why the heck would i ever give a rating of 4* to this 2 *er!
Well, i went to this movie with my friends. Some of the action is like good...worth watching and all...but some of it (especially the flight!) is hilarious. Picture this - the transporter while driving his Audi (now i am proud of that since i own an Audi too), you know cops are behind him and the kidnapper is inside the car with him, says that if everyone is to be safe he needs to drive his way. Soon after...he drive off a 20 storey building into another one. lol!
Anyways. We had an okay time. And it din't take much time either! It's just a 1h20m long movie. The plot of the story is somewhat staggered...a wrap up ending is given. And it seems that Transporter 3 is on it's way!

wonders of the world

Check the top 100 wonders of the world - Hillman Wonders

Man i gotta do atleast 20 of them in this life!

The ones i've already so far -
3. Taj Mahal
6. Grand Canyon
87. Niagara Falls

sit there forever - Niagara

The power of nature. Nature's fury with water. Yet so tamed by the humans to make it a wonder, a marvel rather than a destroyer.
The Niagara is so beautiful. I watch it forever.

Well we started off on Friday night. Came back from office and went to the airport to pick up the Chevy Monte Carlo. Came back, did the packing. Took the maps, the trusty GPS, and started from home around 7:30. Picked up snacks & drinks on the way. Was tired from the whole week at work and i knew the 7 hours drive wouuld feel like 14hours. So we booked a hotel somewhere midway b/w Miamisburg and Niagara. Drove for about 4hrs, reached midnight at the hotel. Checked-in. And dead asleep! Started early morning at 7 from the hotel. And reached our hotel at Niagara at about 10:30. We found out that this hotel was operated by an Indian. Naturally he was willing to help us out in any way possible. He gave and explained us the map to the place and the places of interest - not that any of this was not already available on the internet! Anyways, we started from the hotel around noon.

Got the passport (a collective ticket to visit Niagara attractions) from the visitor center. Nothing could stop us now :) we started towards Niagara. It was an amazing site. The niagara river flows between US & Canada. The niagara river starts from the US side. Turns into the wonderous falls and at the same time form the broder between US & Canada.
Actually there are two falls. The America falls that are completely on the US side. And horse shoe falls that are kindof at the vertex of the US & C border. Both these falls lie on US side but are more clearly visible from the Canada side. The horse shoe falls have come to be known as the Niagara falls. They are about twice in width of the American falls.

The first stop was the observation tower. The tower is actually a half bridge. It starts from the US side over the niagara river and almost goes halfway to the breadth of the river. Just below the observatgion tower is the maid of the mist docking station. You have to take a lift at the observation tower to reach the dock. It's about a 20 storey deep ride.
They give us raincoats. The boat takes us as close to the Niagara as it would be sanely possible. It goes to both American and Horse shoe falls. The horse shoe (just like it sounds) is in the shape of a semi-circle and the boat takes you right to the centre of this semicircle. It was a great view. In front were the horse shoe falls - all the mist falling over you, so loud was the noise of the water falling over that i could hardly hear what others were saying...Behind us was the Niagara river and the American falls.

The maid of the mist was the 2nd best thing to do at Niagara. The best part was the cave of the winds on the American falls. They have built wooden bridges to take you very very close to the American falls. I will probably upload the video i shot from under the falls and post the link here!! You have got to see it!

Besides the falls there were - the chole bhature stand, Jalebis, the adrak waali chai, the chicken biryani, the punjabi dhaba, the idli sambhar, the aquarium, the hot air balloon ride(****), the helicopter ride(***), the Jet boat (*****).

Audi's dashboard.

That hanging egg is silver framed with Australian stones.
And the little guy standing over there is a white skelaton. It can take any shape. Right now it seems to be holding the windscreen...quite hilarious when you look at it from the outside...

niagara pics

have uploaded the niagara pics.
check gallery.

Mediterranean food

After hearing 10s of bad reviews about the new Punjabi dhaba over the last couple of months, we finally decided to guy and try it out ourselves. So fro lunch this past Friday – Punjabi it was. We reached there and had a good laugh when we read – restaurant up for sale. It was shut down! :p

Saw a Mediterranean restaurant right adjacent to the Punjabi restaurant and went in. The food was okay…it was Different. I had ‘hommous’ and ‘chicken roll’. Yumm.
coming soon...niagara trip and pics :)

out of Dayton...

I just might move out of Dayton.
And now that i know there is a possibility...i am hoping for it.

Had an eventful weekend. Saturday was the geo cluster sports meet. Organized by your truly. There were some 75 people from differents projects in Ohio. And Mrs King from Charlotte. Played a lot of volleyball and now have a beautifully tanned face :)
Come Sunday, went early morning to play the LN Katrina Relief cricket tournament. Lost the first match. Won the second match. But were unfortunately out of the first round due to low run-rate. It was pretty dissapointing...the team we beat went through to the next round and not us...