Saturday, February 1, 2014
Thursday, January 30, 2014
In heaven God told all husbands and wives to gather for a meeting. He told the men to stand in two queues: those who are controlled by their wives and those who control their wives. Only one man stood in the second queue.
God asked "So you control your wife?"
The man said "Are you crazy? My wife told me to stand here"
(Forwarded)
God asked "So you control your wife?"
The man said "Are you crazy? My wife told me to stand here"
(Forwarded)
The Thing
Aliens and their wicked plans for colonizing the earth! This subject has been the theme of so many Hollywood movies so far that if there are any extra-terrestrials and they are harboring any such notions (looking at the planet-wide state of affairs, it seems highly unlikely that anyone from space would want to ever set foot here!), they would do well to watch all of them before they firm up any plans.
That said, one cannot deny of the fact that such movies do make you pause right in the middle of channel surfing to watch a scene or two. That's what I intended to do when I read the storyline of 'The Thing' on HBO yesterday night, and then stayed right till the credits rolled by at the end - mainly to find out if the evil alien won and which members of the Homos apien side survived, if at all :-)
The plot is similar to one found in a dozen or so movies in the genre - a group of scientists (for a change, there didn't seem to be any eccentric one in the lot!) digging for God-knows-what in the snowy region someplace stumble upon a spaceship buried millions of years ago. A cursory inspection shows that it is emitting a sort of distress signal when the occupant managed to get out. The team also finds this occupant buried under sheets of ice somewhere close by - dead for all intents and purposes. Since they lack the skill or expertize to make sense of it all, they call upon a group of paleontologists, who land up at the remote location in no time (wish we all had such budgets!). One arrogant member (isn't there always one?) decides to do some tissue analysis and pokes the ice-locked alien with a needle.
Just when everyone is celebrating their find and speculating about how it will change the course of science, the alien wakes up and makes a run for it. Predictably, it ends up killing a member of the expedition. The others manage to set it on fire but realize, to their horror, that the alien was in the process of consuming their colleague when they killed it. Worse, it is found that the alien cells are capable of consuming the human cells and then mimicking them. The obvious conclusion, then, is that anyone of the expedition group could be an alien. The rest of the movie is about the game of survival.
One thing that can be said about the movie is that the director has been fairly successful in maintaining the pace of the action. What that means is that there is no huge time gap between the deaths of successive members :-) He has also been successful in keeping the audience guessing as to which member is infected. I was fairly certain that the female protagonist, Kate, is going to flash an evil grin into the camera seconds before the credits roll by :-)
But at the end of the movie, I still had a couple of questions. How one alien was able to infect so many people? What happened to Kate in the end? Why no aliens came to the rescue of their mate, given that the distress signal was being beamed since eons? And how come NASA and dozen other agencies didn't detect it? :-)
That said, one cannot deny of the fact that such movies do make you pause right in the middle of channel surfing to watch a scene or two. That's what I intended to do when I read the storyline of 'The Thing' on HBO yesterday night, and then stayed right till the credits rolled by at the end - mainly to find out if the evil alien won and which members of the Homos apien side survived, if at all :-)
The plot is similar to one found in a dozen or so movies in the genre - a group of scientists (for a change, there didn't seem to be any eccentric one in the lot!) digging for God-knows-what in the snowy region someplace stumble upon a spaceship buried millions of years ago. A cursory inspection shows that it is emitting a sort of distress signal when the occupant managed to get out. The team also finds this occupant buried under sheets of ice somewhere close by - dead for all intents and purposes. Since they lack the skill or expertize to make sense of it all, they call upon a group of paleontologists, who land up at the remote location in no time (wish we all had such budgets!). One arrogant member (isn't there always one?) decides to do some tissue analysis and pokes the ice-locked alien with a needle.
Just when everyone is celebrating their find and speculating about how it will change the course of science, the alien wakes up and makes a run for it. Predictably, it ends up killing a member of the expedition. The others manage to set it on fire but realize, to their horror, that the alien was in the process of consuming their colleague when they killed it. Worse, it is found that the alien cells are capable of consuming the human cells and then mimicking them. The obvious conclusion, then, is that anyone of the expedition group could be an alien. The rest of the movie is about the game of survival.
One thing that can be said about the movie is that the director has been fairly successful in maintaining the pace of the action. What that means is that there is no huge time gap between the deaths of successive members :-) He has also been successful in keeping the audience guessing as to which member is infected. I was fairly certain that the female protagonist, Kate, is going to flash an evil grin into the camera seconds before the credits roll by :-)
But at the end of the movie, I still had a couple of questions. How one alien was able to infect so many people? What happened to Kate in the end? Why no aliens came to the rescue of their mate, given that the distress signal was being beamed since eons? And how come NASA and dozen other agencies didn't detect it? :-)
Monday, January 27, 2014
Cafe Coffee Day - A perfect place to indulge your sweet tooth
If you think CCD is the place to go to only when you want to have a cup of steaming hot or cold coffee, think again. It's definitely the place to go to if you want to have something sweet but are tired of visiting the same old haunts like Amul, Ice Cream Works, Gelato, Naturals and Baskin-Robbins!
I landed at the neighborhood outlet of CCD one lazy weekend afternoon and turned straight to the dessert section of their menu. Mango Shot (Rs 25) is probably the cheapest and smallest dessert that one can go for here - a good choice for the cost-conscious. Maybe not so much for the calorie-conscious, given that it seems basically made up of Alphonso mango syrup plus a lot of cream. But hey, it is okay not to think of calories once in a while :-) And it's true what they say about good things coming in small packages.
The Black Forest Cup (Rs 80) is the thing to order when you don't mind a few extra calories if they come bundled in a richly flavored dessert. I guess this one doesn't need any introduction. You just have to manage to wait till it is served and then dig in. :-)
If you are one of those who throw any thought of calories to the winds when it comes to ordering the desserts, Sizzle Dazzle Brownie (Rs 137) is the perfect choice. A thick slice of brownie with a sizzling chocolate sauce, a scoop of vanilla ice-cream on top capped with more chocolate sauce - it simply cannot get any better than this.
Even when I stepped out, it felt like heaven :-)
I landed at the neighborhood outlet of CCD one lazy weekend afternoon and turned straight to the dessert section of their menu. Mango Shot (Rs 25) is probably the cheapest and smallest dessert that one can go for here - a good choice for the cost-conscious. Maybe not so much for the calorie-conscious, given that it seems basically made up of Alphonso mango syrup plus a lot of cream. But hey, it is okay not to think of calories once in a while :-) And it's true what they say about good things coming in small packages.
 | ||||
| Mango Shot |
 |
| Black Forest Cup |
 |
| Sizzle Dazzle Brownie |
China Bistro, Shivaji Park
I was really surprised when Chandragupta which was located bang opposite the Shivsena Bhavan closed down a couple of months back. I don't know about the weekdays but at least on the weekends it used to be pretty crowded there. I was also sad because their chicken pot rice was a huge favorite of mine. :-(
But as the Wise say, you should not fret over things that are beyond your control. So I made a mental note of dropping down for a weekend lunch when I saw that a new restaurant that has come up in its place, China Bistro, has opened up for service.
For starters, the menu is shorter than Chandragupta's was, perhaps because it serves only Chinese cuisine. Chandragupta used to serve Chinese plus Indian. I don't much care for soups so I ignored the section. The Dimsums (Boy! That always reminds me of Jet Li!) section has all the usual suspects - dumplings, wontons and spring rolls in their veggie, chicken as well as prawn avatar. The Main section is divided as per the sauces employed to prepare them. There is decent variety when it comes to fried rice and noodles. And the desserts section at the end has 7-8 choices like Honey noodles with vanilla ice-cream.
Since this visit was supposed to be sort of a 'dipstick' study, we chose to stick to the basic dishes - chicken spring rolls and chicken pot rice. The rolls were crisp and had sizable chunks of well-cooked meat, perfectly seasoned. But I found the quantity (6) smaller than what is normally served (at least 8) at other Chinese restaurants. Next time, we would have to go for 2 appetizers. The pot rice was a huge disappointment. It was rather dry, not spicy enough and chicken pieces were so small that you really had to rummage about in the rice to come across one. The whole garlic cloves were so cooked that I first thought they were boiled. I wish they were fried crispy instead. And yes, I have never seen corn being put into 'chicken pot rice'.
As far as the prices go, they are on the reasonable, I would even say lower, side.
I would like to explore the menu more during my future visits. No more pot rice though - maybe a version of fried rice or noodles. And definitely something from the main course. Of course, there will be no need to go for dessert here given that the area boasts of a lot of other choices - Amul, Ice Cream Works, Gelato, Naturals, Baskin-Robbins, Mad Over Donuts, Barista and Cafe Coffee Day!
But as the Wise say, you should not fret over things that are beyond your control. So I made a mental note of dropping down for a weekend lunch when I saw that a new restaurant that has come up in its place, China Bistro, has opened up for service.
For starters, the menu is shorter than Chandragupta's was, perhaps because it serves only Chinese cuisine. Chandragupta used to serve Chinese plus Indian. I don't much care for soups so I ignored the section. The Dimsums (Boy! That always reminds me of Jet Li!) section has all the usual suspects - dumplings, wontons and spring rolls in their veggie, chicken as well as prawn avatar. The Main section is divided as per the sauces employed to prepare them. There is decent variety when it comes to fried rice and noodles. And the desserts section at the end has 7-8 choices like Honey noodles with vanilla ice-cream.
Since this visit was supposed to be sort of a 'dipstick' study, we chose to stick to the basic dishes - chicken spring rolls and chicken pot rice. The rolls were crisp and had sizable chunks of well-cooked meat, perfectly seasoned. But I found the quantity (6) smaller than what is normally served (at least 8) at other Chinese restaurants. Next time, we would have to go for 2 appetizers. The pot rice was a huge disappointment. It was rather dry, not spicy enough and chicken pieces were so small that you really had to rummage about in the rice to come across one. The whole garlic cloves were so cooked that I first thought they were boiled. I wish they were fried crispy instead. And yes, I have never seen corn being put into 'chicken pot rice'.
As far as the prices go, they are on the reasonable, I would even say lower, side.
I would like to explore the menu more during my future visits. No more pot rice though - maybe a version of fried rice or noodles. And definitely something from the main course. Of course, there will be no need to go for dessert here given that the area boasts of a lot of other choices - Amul, Ice Cream Works, Gelato, Naturals, Baskin-Robbins, Mad Over Donuts, Barista and Cafe Coffee Day!
Sunday, January 26, 2014
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