The Udipi Palace!

I was visiting my Aunt and Uncle in Fremont for the Thanksgiving holidays and had a great time there. One night my aunt took me shopping to a Gujju store called Kumudh in this place called Newark and there was this restaurant called Udipi Palace right next to it. Having had amazing vada pav the previous night at Chaat Bhavan, I did not let my expectations go too high.

We entered the restaurant and spotted the buffet sign - we were pulled to it with this unknown powerful force! It was only me, my aunt, and my younger cousin(Sri Ram). Now, I shall describe the various courses which I partook(hehe!)

I started out with alu chat, naan and chole. Then the server fetched a new sizzling dish and I went to check it out and guess what- it was Pav Bhaji! And the pav bhaji was really good :) Then there were these mini uthappams and two different chutneys- coconut and an orange one. The coconut chutney was bad but the orange one made up for it. There was medu vada and a type of cutlet. I had noodles and gobi manchurian. While I was eating something else, the server got freshly made dosas for us! My cousin was overjoyed. There was a guy making dosas at a counter and all the kids who hadn't seen it were gawking admiringly at him. There were not that many north-indian dishes available though. There was bisi-bela baath(sambar rice, dunno how to spell it) and raitha. And there was this whole sub-section of south indian dishes- sambar,rasam,mor kozambu(khadi),kootu,paayasam(kheer),2-3 poriyals,etc! I would technically call this section a buffet within a buffet- as it was equivalent to the south indian 'meals' we get back in India. I could not do justice to this section - my stomach had already reached its above capacity limit.

So anyway, I could eat no more. But wait- there was buttermilk too! Yup! I had 2 cups of that :) and when we went to settle the bill at the counter there was paan too! I am in love with udipi palace!!!

Halloween, some interviews, and a mid term!

Phew! The past three weeks went past me like a dog whose tail was on fire! Lets see...previously I was bitching about how much work I got to do in grad school. Lets chuck that, this blog is become too much of a whiner's blog :)

So lets start with the happiest, most recent memory- Halloween! This being my first Halloween ever, I had no idea what to do....I got a stupid mask but hardly wore it cos it was too suffocating. IV looked like some Indian railway station/bazaar that day! People thronging up and down, in a colourful array of costumes, all high with booze,dope and what not! I kinda didn't fit in though...I mean I dig Diwali, Holi, etc...but this? Maybe next year I will get a decent costume :) And guys, the girls were just a feast for the eyes. My friend Urmish literally thanked me for having dragged him to IV!

I also had a few interviews! The most high profile one was with Microsoft- I had to answer three open-ended questions...keeping my fingers crossed! Then I had an interview with Novacoast - a Santa Barbara based company- the interviewer asked me 7 questions from 7 different languages! The day I had my microsoft interview I also had a midterm- one of the toughest ones I have ever faced :(

I also got a bike! But its kinda rickety and old, so I gotta tune it up a bit. And we got a diwali function this weekend- so I am looking forward to some Indian food and Urmish's guitar playing :) (Diwali2009)

Grad School is tough!

Phew! Every week I wait with bated breath for Thursday night...cos that is when my 3 day weekend starts! I know...you must be thinking...this guy has a three day weekend? His life is made right? No way! Cos the other 4 days are so engaging and there is so much going on in Grad school you literally have no time to stand and stare! And since this is a Thursday night I thought , hey, let me empty my head a little.

So what happens in Grad school? Well, I read papers. I work on assignments. I work on projects. I try to keep up with what the Prof is talking about. And since I am in the hellish quarter system, I just try to get by. And since I am a Masters student, I am totally confused :)

But hey, its fun. I am finally learning stuff. Hadn't done anything in years! Am working on this project for one of my courses- its a web application for the cloud and we are gonna make it using Google App Engine, Python and Django- all of which I gotta learn! But hey that is cool-how about the weather? I still don't get California-one day it rains, one day its sunny, and one day its cold! Crazy! And you gotta come back after a long day in this crazy weather & make yourself some food before you drop off! Welcome to grad school!

Life in the US

Hiya folks! Its been a long time since I blogged...probably cos I was busy adding numerous layers of fat while I was at home for 3 months! Now that I am in the US, and I finally have a laptop I was like hey, lets start blabbing again.

Ok, so before coming here I was like- "Wow! I am finally going to the US of A!" and everyone around me was behaving as if I was gonna go to a different planet! Well, I have been here for a little over 2 weeks and let me tell you, life is not that different.

Everyone is polite here. Now that is something weird when you come here the first time. Especially if you have roamed around in Mumbai where people only have time to curse you.

Vehicles stop when you want to cross the road! This is again a bit scary cos a line of vehicles is waiting for you to cross the road!

Now a bit about the place where I am. I am staying in this real small city(lol) called Goleta. Its a city of 10,000 people. I am sure there are housing societies in India with more ;)

Goleta is actually kind of like a small, rich village. Everyone either has a car- or a bike! That is probably cos we're close to UCSB. One more crazy thing- bikes with gears are cheaper than bikes without them! And if you accidentally call a bike a cycle- you are bound to get no response (it happened to me in Kmart,hehe)


Some things are still different for me. I haven't yet got used to seeing vehicles drive on the right. Every time I am waiting to cross at an intersection, I would think-"That vehicle would turn left" and then it wouldn't and I would be stumped! Guess it would take a while for my tiny little brain to get adjusted to.

And ya, we simply HAVE to cook here. Eating out on a regular basis is pretty expensive, especially if you involuntarily end up converting dollars to rupees. Luckily one roomie of mine is a Gujju, so he got tons of masalas :) The tough part is using them.

As I am in Southern California, the weather is pretty much the same as that in India. In fact its been really hot for the past few days. Nights are pretty cool.

A bit about the university. UCSB is a beautiful campus. Its surrounded by beaches and mountains on all sides! You have to watch out for bikes rather than cars! Loads of skateboarders too. There is a beach right opposite my department!

We got our memberships in Costco & Albertsons (departmental chains here). We are still in the process of setting up our apartment. We had to buy and fix our own tubelights(called fluorescents here :) ) And well, we gotta laze some time too! This is currently my ~amazing~ life here!

A new day has come

And so finally the day came when we left SASTRA...the place where I lost my soul and regained most of it. The past 4 years have been crazy...the place which I hated the most in my life became the place where I made some friends I will never forget...some I might never meet again(sob :( )...but its been one hell of a ride! And so when I look back now...all those times we sat vetti in hostel doing absolutely nothing...sleeping,eating,drinking...bunking classes...eating crappy mess food..avoiding mess food(!)...bitching about the management...taking digs at the dumb ass teachers...skt's bajjis...I guess there won't be any of that now.

For all the people who helped me survive these four years, cheers to you, and I hope you have a blast for the rest for your lives :)

PS: Shit, I'm actually senti!

Another Limerick!

I was sitting in class getting real bored. Our HOD was boring us to death, as usual. And so, I wrote this limerick, dedicated to her:

In this hour of darkness there is no time
As we all wait for the bells to chime
The dragon drones, plunging us into sorrows
With words from here and there that she borrows
Oh! Gone is the youth of prime


If you don't know what a limerick is, read this old post of mine: ClickHere

Black Ice Vs Chinese Democracy Vs Death Magnetic

Three old time rock bands have released new albums towards the end of last year-AC/DC,GnR and Metallica!

Ok, a bit of my background first. After Linkin Park(yikes!) my first foray into proper rock was GnR in my 11th standard. I heard Sweet child of mine on radio/tv and absolutely loved it! I went on to listen to all their big hits and fell in love with a lot of them. Lets move on. I heard Metallica & Ac/Dc on & off in the next few years. Think I probably heard Ac/Dc the first time in the movie "School of Rock"(one hell of a movie, a must watch). I liked Metallica's first few albums better than the later ones(the ones in the 90s)- I loved Black but didn't care much for Load & Reload.
All right?! So lets get on with it!

1.Black Ice (AC/DC)

If you have heard AC/DC before, you'll love this one. Its typical of their style- which I think is plain, fucking, happy rock- no ballads, no desperation, just plain old rock for the heck of it! So lets talk about the songs. The trouble with me is that I find all AC/DC songs a bit similar to one another. And I don't pay much attention to the lyrics(except, of course when its "You shook me all night long..." or "Hard as a rock",wink wink!) The song which was first released is I believe, Rock n'Roll Train, which is awesome. Other decent songs in the album- Black Ice(title song), Big Jack, She likes Rock n'Roll. The title was taken from "black ice"-transparent ice which often proves hazardous and apparently forms in Scotland a lot(Scotland is from where the Young brothers originally hail from). According to various sources, Black Ice has outsold even Death Magnetic, Metallica's latest album

2.Chinese Democracy (Guns'n Roses)

If you were expecting anything which was typical of Axl Rose or the good'ol GnR, then forget it. This ain't anything like GnR ever played before. Its modern all right but didn't strike a chord with me. I mean I know he has spent millions of dollars and over 15 years on this piece of shit, but it remains what it is- a piece of shit. And hey-there is no Slash! The only songs I liked were "Madagascar" & "Catcher in the rye"- both of which leaked ages ago on the internet. The title is I guess a dig at the Chinese government( its definitely a oxymoron). Well its been banned in China anyway,lol. Other songs you can put up with-"I.R.S" & "Sorry".


3.Death Magnetic (Metallica)

Probably the most expected album of 2008, it has ruled the charts ever since it released(like any good old Metallica album!). Unfortunately I didn't like it a lot. Lars keeps banging on the drums a bit too hard, Hetfield's voice sounds fucked up but hey- we can finally hear Kirk Hammett's solos again! The album clocks over 70 minutes which is really long for an album these days! The average length of each song is over 7 minutes- most of modern rock can't even last 3 minutes.

Lets check out the songs. My best friend(who is also Metallica's best fan, I'm sure of it!) suggested that I first listen to "Suicide & Redemption"- an instrumental. Its kinda long and tries hard to sound like an instrumental but fails miserably. I felt the song was desperate for some vocals! I then tried out "All nightmare long" and "The end of the line" - both of which reminded me of some old Metallica 80s song (can't place my finger on it). The songs had solos by Kirk but they were too long for my ears' comfort. "The day that never comes" was kinda decent-its supposed to be a ballad. "Unforgiven 3" sucks big time- its nothing like Unforgiven 1 or 2. In short, the album is full of long songs with solos which don't really gel and Lars drumming away to damnation and Hetfield sounding like a hoarse old man at 45. I guess the album is probably way better than most of the mod rock crap that people listen to nowadays - maybe thats why its on top of the charts! If you are a hard-core Metallica fan(like my friend!), then you might like the album. But for a moderate fan like me- who feels Metallica started losing it ever since "Load" you can skip this one all right. And oh ya this album features Robert "Gorilla" Trujillo as Bass Guitarist for the first time.


Album covers: You can check out the three album covers on the bands' websites or Wikipedia. I liked AC/DC's best. The cover for "Chinese Democracy" shows a cycle with a cane basket. Dunno whats that supposed to mean. Death Magnetic's cover has well, "Death Magnetic" written in typical boring Metallica font.


The Verdict:
AC/DC wins hands down with "Black Ice". I can listen to it any time, anywhere, without discomfort. At number 2 would be "Death Magnetic", I guess. Sorry metallica fans. At the bottom, "Chinese Democracy"- and no, no apology! Black Ice is played once a day on my speakers. The other two- I am afraid I need to take treatment for forcing myself to listen to them so that I could write this crappy review(Oh! Review tha kya?!)

How did I get the songs? Don't buy the CD, idiot! Whats p2p for? If you like the songs, and feel you wanna help the band(who are fuckin' millionaries anyways) you can buy the cd. Until then, visit isohunt.com
For those about to rock....we salute YOU!