Elliot: ... let's just go home and watch Grey's Anatomy.
JD: I love that show. It's like they have taken our lives and put them on TV.
Scrubs, Season 5, Episode 11 - "My Buddy's Booty"
Scrubs: 1, Grey's Anatomy: 0
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Daily dose of timepass.
- Slashdot
- del.icio.us/popular
- Digg
- Boing Boing (Occasionally not safe for work)
- Snopes - What's New
- scans_daily (Occasionally not safe for work)
- The Old New Thing
- Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog
- The Daily WTF
- hydrogenaudio
Sunday, February 19, 2006
My adventures in TV land.
Mondays are usually CBS. Two and a Half Men is on in the evenings. There used to be another comedy right after it called Out Of Practise which seems to be cancelled, because I haven't seen it on for the last couple of weeks. It's been replaced by Courting Alex which isn't as good.
Tuesdays, it's Scrubs on NBC. A full hour of Scrubs, two new episodes back to back. Yeah, I guess you can tell that I really like Tuesdays.
Wednesdays, I don't remember. I don't think anything good is on.
Thursdays, it's My Name Is Earl and The Office. My Name Is Earl has been pretty inconsistent so far. Some episodes have been pretty funny, others have bored me to tears. The Office on the other hand is one of the funniest shows on TV.
Fridays, I don't remember. Which is odd, considering that I'm sure something good is on. Damned if I remember though. (Oh, yeah, I've been watching Beauty and The Geek. Please, don't tell anyone.) Actually Friday's there's a pretty good chance I won't be home, it being a Friday and all.
At this point I should also add that most of the time I'm not watching the stuff listed above, I'm almost certainly either watching PBS or surfing (or a watching a stray episode of That '70s Show or Yes, Dear.) And every night, I watch Conan (especially if it's a new show or a particularly funny old one.) One of the advantages of living in the Midwest is that Conan is on at 11:30 pm instead of 12:30 pm like the rest of the US.
Saturdays, I try and get out of the house. If I can't (-18°C anyone?), I usually watch PBS, unless there's something funny on the other channels. Incredibly, PBS has recently been showing the original British version of The Office on Saturday. Watching Ricky Gervais and Steve Carrell in the same week playing the same role, is a lot of fun. (Another funny show on PBS is My Hero, which chronicles the adventures of Thermoman!) If I'm home, I may also watch Saturday Night Live. Much later in the night Fox will have Farscape on, which I watch religiously.
Sundays, I may watch a little bit of Desperate Housewives especially if Gabrielle is doing something fun. Otherwise, I will wait until 9 pm and then watch Grey's Anatomy. That's a good show. It's one of the few serious shows on TV that I can stomach. All that hot doctor action sometimes makes me wish I had done medicine. And to cap off the week, Fox will show another episode of Farscape.
And if you haven't realized by now, you should know - I don't have cable!
Mondays are usually CBS. Two and a Half Men is on in the evenings. There used to be another comedy right after it called Out Of Practise which seems to be cancelled, because I haven't seen it on for the last couple of weeks. It's been replaced by Courting Alex which isn't as good.
Tuesdays, it's Scrubs on NBC. A full hour of Scrubs, two new episodes back to back. Yeah, I guess you can tell that I really like Tuesdays.
Wednesdays, I don't remember. I don't think anything good is on.
Thursdays, it's My Name Is Earl and The Office. My Name Is Earl has been pretty inconsistent so far. Some episodes have been pretty funny, others have bored me to tears. The Office on the other hand is one of the funniest shows on TV.
Fridays, I don't remember. Which is odd, considering that I'm sure something good is on. Damned if I remember though. (Oh, yeah, I've been watching Beauty and The Geek. Please, don't tell anyone.) Actually Friday's there's a pretty good chance I won't be home, it being a Friday and all.
At this point I should also add that most of the time I'm not watching the stuff listed above, I'm almost certainly either watching PBS or surfing (or a watching a stray episode of That '70s Show or Yes, Dear.) And every night, I watch Conan (especially if it's a new show or a particularly funny old one.) One of the advantages of living in the Midwest is that Conan is on at 11:30 pm instead of 12:30 pm like the rest of the US.
Saturdays, I try and get out of the house. If I can't (-18°C anyone?), I usually watch PBS, unless there's something funny on the other channels. Incredibly, PBS has recently been showing the original British version of The Office on Saturday. Watching Ricky Gervais and Steve Carrell in the same week playing the same role, is a lot of fun. (Another funny show on PBS is My Hero, which chronicles the adventures of Thermoman!) If I'm home, I may also watch Saturday Night Live. Much later in the night Fox will have Farscape on, which I watch religiously.
Sundays, I may watch a little bit of Desperate Housewives especially if Gabrielle is doing something fun. Otherwise, I will wait until 9 pm and then watch Grey's Anatomy. That's a good show. It's one of the few serious shows on TV that I can stomach. All that hot doctor action sometimes makes me wish I had done medicine. And to cap off the week, Fox will show another episode of Farscape.
And if you haven't realized by now, you should know - I don't have cable!
Monday, February 06, 2006
Weekend reading.
The Essential Wolverine, Vol. 1 and Black Widow. Both essentially forgettable. I only picked them up from the library because they were there.
Watchmen by written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. I've written about this graphic novel before, but you can never shower too much praise on it. Every time I read this, I discover something new that I missed the first time around. The only analogies I can draw are to good wine: subtle, layered, complex.
The Cook's Illustrated Complete Book of Poultry. If one has to use a single word to describe any cook book written by the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine, than the word has to be 'complete'. This book is no exception, and contains an almost encyclopedic collection of recipes for chicken, turkey, quail, duck and other poultry. What appeals to the engineer in me is how scientific their approach is. Each chapter is about one particular preparation method. Roasting, broiling, sautéing, frying, even chicken curry, is given the treatment. My mom taught me how to make chicken curry. This book explained what each step does to the chicken and why it's needed. Recommended.
(And yes, in case you haven't noticed over the last few posts, I'm a food voyeur)
The Essential Wolverine, Vol. 1 and Black Widow. Both essentially forgettable. I only picked them up from the library because they were there.
Watchmen by written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. I've written about this graphic novel before, but you can never shower too much praise on it. Every time I read this, I discover something new that I missed the first time around. The only analogies I can draw are to good wine: subtle, layered, complex.
The Cook's Illustrated Complete Book of Poultry. If one has to use a single word to describe any cook book written by the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine, than the word has to be 'complete'. This book is no exception, and contains an almost encyclopedic collection of recipes for chicken, turkey, quail, duck and other poultry. What appeals to the engineer in me is how scientific their approach is. Each chapter is about one particular preparation method. Roasting, broiling, sautéing, frying, even chicken curry, is given the treatment. My mom taught me how to make chicken curry. This book explained what each step does to the chicken and why it's needed. Recommended.
(And yes, in case you haven't noticed over the last few posts, I'm a food voyeur)
Thursday, February 02, 2006
After installing Firefox 1.5, I was upset to notice that the minimize-to-free-memory trick from version 1.0.7 stopped working. Here's how to get the old behavior back.
- Type in about:config in the address bar.
- Right click on the list and select New -> Boolean.
- Type in config.trim_on_minimize as the preference name.
- Set the value to be true.
- Restart Firefox and tada!
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Three graphic novels read last weekend.
Invincible is a relatively new comic book series written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley. I read the first 13 issues collected in graphics novel format as Invincible: The Ultimate Collection (Volume 1). Invincible is about what it would be like to grow up as Superman's son. Essentially a well-written combination of science-fiction and the O.C.
Then I read three volumes of The Walking Dead also written by Kirkman (Illustrated in horrific pen and ink by Charlie Adlard.) This is a zombie book, which opens suspiciously like 28 Days Later. Pretty quick however we see that this book is about a lot more than just zombies. It's one of the most plausible portrayals about how people would actually act during a world-wide catastrophe. This book has bigotry, sexual politics, mania, and everything else that makes us human.
And finally, I read a book which quickly finds itself in the list of the greatest graphic novels ever written, right up there with Persepolis and The Watchmen. The Tale of One Bad Rat, written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot. The story of a young girl with a pet rat, on the run, that will break your heart and give you hope. The art, lush and beautiful, illustrates Mr. Talbot's mastery of all the literary devices of modern graphic novel, quite a few of which he invented himself, in his earlier work The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. (Hat tip to Warren Ellis for introducing me to Bryan Talbot.)
Invincible is a relatively new comic book series written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley. I read the first 13 issues collected in graphics novel format as Invincible: The Ultimate Collection (Volume 1). Invincible is about what it would be like to grow up as Superman's son. Essentially a well-written combination of science-fiction and the O.C.
Then I read three volumes of The Walking Dead also written by Kirkman (Illustrated in horrific pen and ink by Charlie Adlard.) This is a zombie book, which opens suspiciously like 28 Days Later. Pretty quick however we see that this book is about a lot more than just zombies. It's one of the most plausible portrayals about how people would actually act during a world-wide catastrophe. This book has bigotry, sexual politics, mania, and everything else that makes us human.
And finally, I read a book which quickly finds itself in the list of the greatest graphic novels ever written, right up there with Persepolis and The Watchmen. The Tale of One Bad Rat, written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot. The story of a young girl with a pet rat, on the run, that will break your heart and give you hope. The art, lush and beautiful, illustrates Mr. Talbot's mastery of all the literary devices of modern graphic novel, quite a few of which he invented himself, in his earlier work The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. (Hat tip to Warren Ellis for introducing me to Bryan Talbot.)
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
A mid-afternoon post is a rare thing. But seeing as how I haven't really been posting otherwise this will have to do.
We've had some unseasonally warm weather for the last couple of weeks. No complaints.
I should probably cook more than I do. Still, I seem to be cooking more than in my old apartment, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
I should spend less time in front of a computer. Eyes hurty.
Nothing good on TV but Steve Carell won a Golden Globe last night for The Office which was a good thing. He beat Zach Braff in Scrubs though, which goes to show how good the NBC comedy line-up is. (There's should be a new episode of Scrubs on today, yay!)
We've had some unseasonally warm weather for the last couple of weeks. No complaints.
I should probably cook more than I do. Still, I seem to be cooking more than in my old apartment, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
I should spend less time in front of a computer. Eyes hurty.
Nothing good on TV but Steve Carell won a Golden Globe last night for The Office which was a good thing. He beat Zach Braff in Scrubs though, which goes to show how good the NBC comedy line-up is. (There's should be a new episode of Scrubs on today, yay!)
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Tetris is addictive
I downloaded a free version called Yet Another Tetris for my mobile phone, and haven't been able to stop playing. I play a couple of hours everyday. I should stop as I see blocks falling when I close my eyes.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Now that we finished trying out Performancing, let's try Deepest Sender. It's actually been designed for Livejournal exclusively but the latest version supports posting to Blogger. The first thing I notice is that I cannot pull up an older post. I guess this is something which will change in the future. Other wise the interface is pretty much the same. Update: Well, I reviewed this just a few days too soon! The latest version (0.7.3) does support editing posts which is great. Code generation also works better than Performancing.
Most of my complaints with Performancing seem to hold true for this extension too. No fixed width font in the source tab, no easy way to use a
Most of my complaints with Performancing seem to hold true for this extension too. No fixed width font in the source tab, no easy way to use a
<code> tag etc. Also, the default text editor font is too small.
So this is a test post using the Performancing Firefox extension. It's a blog managing mini-application that runs inside Firefox. You can add, edit and delete posts. I guess it would be especially helpful if you have multiple blogs with multiple blogging services.
Looks like I already found a few bugs! If you select a post to edit from your existing posts, it seems to wrap paragraphs in a
Also, the html editor is not syntax highlighted, and doesn't use a fixed width font. No easy way to wrap chunks of code in
More bugs! If the connection to blogger.com fails when you are editing a post, the post as edit button disappears. I have to restart performancing to get back normal behavior.
Looks like I already found a few bugs! If you select a post to edit from your existing posts, it seems to wrap paragraphs in a
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> and add additional line breaks.Also, the html editor is not syntax highlighted, and doesn't use a fixed width font. No easy way to wrap chunks of code in
<code> or <pre> tags. More importantly no spell checker. I'm probably going to stick to using the rich text editor built into blogger.com until they fix all this stuff.More bugs! If the connection to blogger.com fails when you are editing a post, the post as edit button disappears. I have to restart performancing to get back normal behavior.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
I just got the BESTEST TAG IN THE WORLD!!!!!! THE BESTEST!!!!!!!!! FOOOOOOOD TAAAAAAG!!!!! Thank you bluegreenfly.....SPLAT!
Well, I've put 10 things in this list, but I'm not done, so I'm gonna get back tomorrow sometime and get this up to 25! Update: Done! But I'm really unhappy 'cause I just realized that my list would probably go on forever. I was planning to find pictures for all of these things and add them here, but it's a lot easier to just google. Maybe I'll add links and pictures if I feel like it.
I tag i-me-moi, Saket, Jean Valjean, Vikster, and Thë Là¢ke¥. Do me proud my fellow foodies.
Also, I wrote this list from 1 to 25, which will explain some inconsistencies in references. My next post is probably going to be about stuff which I've heard a lot about, but never had a chance to eat.
25. Roomali roti (रुमाली रोटी) - Flat bread so thin and delicate, it's a wonder in itself. The best part of eating roomali roti is watching the cook make it. Tossing and swirling that dough until it's ultrathin before toasting it on an upturned wok (I'm sure it's called something else, I just call it an upturned wok.) Best served with mughlai mutton or chicken.
24. Sutarfeni (सुतरफेणी) - I'm not even going to bother with trying to describe what this is. Suffice is to say that the best sutarfeni I've had has been at Parsi Dairy at Charni Road. Don't miss it.
23. Jalebi (जलेबी or जिलेबी as we say in Marathi) - I don't know where to begin with a description. Deep-fried syrup-soaked saffron-colored spiral flour rolls, steeped in sugar syrup? How's that? Served piping hot or really cold.
22. Kokum kadi (कोकम कडी aka सोल कडी) - A tart drink made with coconut milk and kokum. Good quality kokum and coconut milk are both hard to obtain in the US. Still, if you can get by with canned coconut milk and blackmail a friend into carrying a packet of kokum from India, you're set.
21. Paneer tikka (पनीर टिक्का) - Spiced cottage cheese baked in a tandoor. I remember having these as appetizers at Copper Chimney (at Worli) once, and boy, weren't they something. Each tikka was perfectly done, with the paneer firm yet luscious. Put a piece in your mouth and it would melt with an unforgettable explosion of spice and texture. And yet, I like 20 things more than this!
20. Aamras-puri (आम्रस पुरी) - Fried flat bread served with piping hot with chilled mango puree. For best results, seat yourself in the kitchen, so that the puris are really piping hot and puffed up. Again one of those vegetarian dishes that could make me quit meat.
19. Tandoori chicken (तन्दूरी मुर्ग) - Every body seems to know what tandoori chicken is, but I haven't had authentic tandoori anywhere in the US. Most of the time, it's been some kinda spiced baked chicken with too much red food-coloring. Other times, it's been a little better but not a single place in the US has nailed the taste and texture of this delicacy. But for authentic tandoori, I guess you'll have to go to India.
18. Tallelya bhendyanchi bhaji (तळलेल्या भेन्ड्यान्ची भाजी) - Spicy fried okra. I have this at least a couple of times a week, being so easy to make and delicious and all that. (Buy cut okra from supermarket, heat oil in frying pan, add kokum, add washed okra, add chilli powder, add salt, add dhaniya-jeera powder, fry until okra is halfway blackened. Serve with rice or chapati. The "buy cut okra" step is the most important!)
17. Bhanola (भानोळं) - A sort of savory loaf made from chickpea flour. That description really sucked, but I don't really know what I can do to make it better. (Need to call mom. Need to ask her why I didn't have this during my visit.)
16. Tisrya (तिस्र्या) - Clam curry. I love this, but it's a bit of a pain to have to extract the meat from the clams. (And yeah, I have no idea why they are called tisrya.)
15. Undhiu (उँधिऊ) - Gujarati vegetable stew. I feel sorry for any vegetarian person who hasn't had undhiu yet. Back home, my mom used to make undhiu once upon a time, these days she simply gets it from any of the fantastic Gujju places in Girgaum. Over here, I'm forced to buy the ready to eat version from the Indian store. Not quite as good, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.
14. Bhakri (भाक्री) - Various types of flat bread made from either sorghum (jowar), millet (bajari) or rice. Bhakri is so much better than nans, kulchas, and parathas, it's not even funny. Best accompanied by number 8 and 9.
13. Vade (वडे) - Fried multi-grain flat bread. No, it's not what you think non-Marathi folk. This is the traditional accompaniment to number 10 - chicken. Say कोम्ब्डी वडे with me children!
12. Alu vadi (अळु वडी) - Fried batter-stuffed rolled leaves of the colocassia plant. That simple description does no justice at all to this fantastic appetizer. Again, this is the sort of thing that you will never really get in the US. (Unless you count the ready-to-eat heat and serve version.)
11. Pancharatna bhaji (aka Rishi chi bhaji) (पंचरत्न भाजी - ॠषी ची भाजी) - A springtime vegetable stew with Indian white corn, and lots and lots of different vegetables. If I ever decide to quit eating meat, this will be one of the things I'll have to learn to cook.
10. Kombdi (कोम्ब्डी) - Curried chicken. The chicken in this has to be free range chicken. (Desi folk will call this गावठी.)
9. Mutton (मटण) - Curried mutton. I guess having this for lunch every Sunday afternoon for most of my life kinda made this really grow on me. I especially love some of the more esoteric stuff that goes in this curry - spleen (तिल्ली), kidney (गुर्दा), fat (मान्द or चर्बी) and of course कपूरा!
8. Kaleji fry (कलेजी फ्राय) - Fried curried goat liver. This is my mom's signature dish when we have guests over. It's also the stuff that gets over fastest. (I kinda cheat and take a really large helping right in the beginning!)
7. Bheja fry (भेजा फ्राय) - Fried goat brains. We would get this before every major exam. My dad would say, bheja khao - bheja chalao!
6. Tallela bangda (तळलेला बान्ग्डा) - Fried mackerel. The tastiest fish around. The only reason it doesn't feature at a better rank on the list is cause I didn't know what to move out.
5. Tallela halva (तळलेला हल्वा) - Fried black pomfret. The meat is succulent yet firm and much tastier than the white pomfret.
4. Chimboryancha kalvan (चिम्बोर्यान्चे काल्वण) - Crab curry. I'm salivating a bit too much to be able to elaborate.
3. Tallelya kolambya (तळलेल्या कोलम्ब्या) - Fried prawns. Heh! Fried prawns. I eat fried prawns in my dreams. I'm not kidding. And the best part of prawns, is that unlike 1. and 2. they are much easier to find in fish-market. If aliens destroyed the earth and I was the only survivor, I would mourn fried prawns. Mom's recipe for frying of course!
2. Shevandyancha kalvan (शेवन्ड्यान्चे काल्वण) - Lobster curry (This is the Indian-style spiny lobster, not the stuff you get in the US, though that's good too.) Lobster meat has to be eaten to be believed. Mom's recipe for currying of course!
1. Talleli gaboli (तळलेली गाबोळी) - Fried roe of the bhing (भिंगं) fish. (Not surmai as I had said earlier.) This is pretty much heaven. I don't care if you're queasy. It just means more for me! Mom's recipe for frying of course!
Well, I've put 10 things in this list, but I'm not done, so I'm gonna get back tomorrow sometime and get this up to 25! Update: Done! But I'm really unhappy 'cause I just realized that my list would probably go on forever. I was planning to find pictures for all of these things and add them here, but it's a lot easier to just google. Maybe I'll add links and pictures if I feel like it.
I tag i-me-moi, Saket, Jean Valjean, Vikster, and Thë Là¢ke¥. Do me proud my fellow foodies.
Also, I wrote this list from 1 to 25, which will explain some inconsistencies in references. My next post is probably going to be about stuff which I've heard a lot about, but never had a chance to eat.
25. Roomali roti (रुमाली रोटी) - Flat bread so thin and delicate, it's a wonder in itself. The best part of eating roomali roti is watching the cook make it. Tossing and swirling that dough until it's ultrathin before toasting it on an upturned wok (I'm sure it's called something else, I just call it an upturned wok.) Best served with mughlai mutton or chicken.
24. Sutarfeni (सुतरफेणी) - I'm not even going to bother with trying to describe what this is. Suffice is to say that the best sutarfeni I've had has been at Parsi Dairy at Charni Road. Don't miss it.
23. Jalebi (जलेबी or जिलेबी as we say in Marathi) - I don't know where to begin with a description. Deep-fried syrup-soaked saffron-colored spiral flour rolls, steeped in sugar syrup? How's that? Served piping hot or really cold.
22. Kokum kadi (कोकम कडी aka सोल कडी) - A tart drink made with coconut milk and kokum. Good quality kokum and coconut milk are both hard to obtain in the US. Still, if you can get by with canned coconut milk and blackmail a friend into carrying a packet of kokum from India, you're set.
21. Paneer tikka (पनीर टिक्का) - Spiced cottage cheese baked in a tandoor. I remember having these as appetizers at Copper Chimney (at Worli) once, and boy, weren't they something. Each tikka was perfectly done, with the paneer firm yet luscious. Put a piece in your mouth and it would melt with an unforgettable explosion of spice and texture. And yet, I like 20 things more than this!
20. Aamras-puri (आम्रस पुरी) - Fried flat bread served with piping hot with chilled mango puree. For best results, seat yourself in the kitchen, so that the puris are really piping hot and puffed up. Again one of those vegetarian dishes that could make me quit meat.
19. Tandoori chicken (तन्दूरी मुर्ग) - Every body seems to know what tandoori chicken is, but I haven't had authentic tandoori anywhere in the US. Most of the time, it's been some kinda spiced baked chicken with too much red food-coloring. Other times, it's been a little better but not a single place in the US has nailed the taste and texture of this delicacy. But for authentic tandoori, I guess you'll have to go to India.
18. Tallelya bhendyanchi bhaji (तळलेल्या भेन्ड्यान्ची भाजी) - Spicy fried okra. I have this at least a couple of times a week, being so easy to make and delicious and all that. (Buy cut okra from supermarket, heat oil in frying pan, add kokum, add washed okra, add chilli powder, add salt, add dhaniya-jeera powder, fry until okra is halfway blackened. Serve with rice or chapati. The "buy cut okra" step is the most important!)
17. Bhanola (भानोळं) - A sort of savory loaf made from chickpea flour. That description really sucked, but I don't really know what I can do to make it better. (Need to call mom. Need to ask her why I didn't have this during my visit.)
16. Tisrya (तिस्र्या) - Clam curry. I love this, but it's a bit of a pain to have to extract the meat from the clams. (And yeah, I have no idea why they are called tisrya.)
15. Undhiu (उँधिऊ) - Gujarati vegetable stew. I feel sorry for any vegetarian person who hasn't had undhiu yet. Back home, my mom used to make undhiu once upon a time, these days she simply gets it from any of the fantastic Gujju places in Girgaum. Over here, I'm forced to buy the ready to eat version from the Indian store. Not quite as good, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.
14. Bhakri (भाक्री) - Various types of flat bread made from either sorghum (jowar), millet (bajari) or rice. Bhakri is so much better than nans, kulchas, and parathas, it's not even funny. Best accompanied by number 8 and 9.
13. Vade (वडे) - Fried multi-grain flat bread. No, it's not what you think non-Marathi folk. This is the traditional accompaniment to number 10 - chicken. Say कोम्ब्डी वडे with me children!
12. Alu vadi (अळु वडी) - Fried batter-stuffed rolled leaves of the colocassia plant. That simple description does no justice at all to this fantastic appetizer. Again, this is the sort of thing that you will never really get in the US. (Unless you count the ready-to-eat heat and serve version.)
11. Pancharatna bhaji (aka Rishi chi bhaji) (पंचरत्न भाजी - ॠषी ची भाजी) - A springtime vegetable stew with Indian white corn, and lots and lots of different vegetables. If I ever decide to quit eating meat, this will be one of the things I'll have to learn to cook.
10. Kombdi (कोम्ब्डी) - Curried chicken. The chicken in this has to be free range chicken. (Desi folk will call this गावठी.)
9. Mutton (मटण) - Curried mutton. I guess having this for lunch every Sunday afternoon for most of my life kinda made this really grow on me. I especially love some of the more esoteric stuff that goes in this curry - spleen (तिल्ली), kidney (गुर्दा), fat (मान्द or चर्बी) and of course कपूरा!
8. Kaleji fry (कलेजी फ्राय) - Fried curried goat liver. This is my mom's signature dish when we have guests over. It's also the stuff that gets over fastest. (I kinda cheat and take a really large helping right in the beginning!)
7. Bheja fry (भेजा फ्राय) - Fried goat brains. We would get this before every major exam. My dad would say, bheja khao - bheja chalao!
6. Tallela bangda (तळलेला बान्ग्डा) - Fried mackerel. The tastiest fish around. The only reason it doesn't feature at a better rank on the list is cause I didn't know what to move out.
5. Tallela halva (तळलेला हल्वा) - Fried black pomfret. The meat is succulent yet firm and much tastier than the white pomfret.
4. Chimboryancha kalvan (चिम्बोर्यान्चे काल्वण) - Crab curry. I'm salivating a bit too much to be able to elaborate.
3. Tallelya kolambya (तळलेल्या कोलम्ब्या) - Fried prawns. Heh! Fried prawns. I eat fried prawns in my dreams. I'm not kidding. And the best part of prawns, is that unlike 1. and 2. they are much easier to find in fish-market. If aliens destroyed the earth and I was the only survivor, I would mourn fried prawns. Mom's recipe for frying of course!
2. Shevandyancha kalvan (शेवन्ड्यान्चे काल्वण) - Lobster curry (This is the Indian-style spiny lobster, not the stuff you get in the US, though that's good too.) Lobster meat has to be eaten to be believed. Mom's recipe for currying of course!
1. Talleli gaboli (तळलेली गाबोळी) - Fried roe of the bhing (भिंगं) fish. (Not surmai as I had said earlier.) This is pretty much heaven. I don't care if you're queasy. It just means more for me! Mom's recipe for frying of course!
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Yeah, I got really nothing to write home about so I guess it's time to review some comics.
Picked up a copy of All Star Superman last weekend, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Frank Quitely. Regular readers of my blog should know that that's the dream comic book team according to me. Do they deliver for All Star Superman? Of course!
DC's All Star series is a reimagining to their flagship characters Batman and Superman. All Star Batman is by Frank Miller and illustrated by Jim Lee and that book sucked so badly I asked my comic book guy to stop holding it for me. (To be honest the Jim Lee art was fantastic as usual but Frank Miller seems to have lost all his writing skills after Sin City.) However, the comic did give us the panel that inspired a generation!
Other stuff I'm reading is Desolation Jones by written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by J. H. Williams III. A secret community of ex-spies based in L.A. Hitler porn. And the worst looking protagonist in a recent comic book. This has got to be the best book of 2005.
I'll write some more in the next post, but now, it's time to go and buy some comic books!
Picked up a copy of All Star Superman last weekend, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Frank Quitely. Regular readers of my blog should know that that's the dream comic book team according to me. Do they deliver for All Star Superman? Of course!
DC's All Star series is a reimagining to their flagship characters Batman and Superman. All Star Batman is by Frank Miller and illustrated by Jim Lee and that book sucked so badly I asked my comic book guy to stop holding it for me. (To be honest the Jim Lee art was fantastic as usual but Frank Miller seems to have lost all his writing skills after Sin City.) However, the comic did give us the panel that inspired a generation!
Other stuff I'm reading is Desolation Jones by written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by J. H. Williams III. A secret community of ex-spies based in L.A. Hitler porn. And the worst looking protagonist in a recent comic book. This has got to be the best book of 2005.
I'll write some more in the next post, but now, it's time to go and buy some comic books!
Friday, December 02, 2005
Yeah, I'm back in Madison. I've already seen some snow. Somehow, it's not as bad after three and a half weeks in Mumbai. (Having bag loads of desi snacks always helps!)
Right now I'm up so late because I'm recalibrating the battery in my laptop. You basically fully charge the battery, disable all Windows battery alarms and let it shutdown. Then you plug it in and fully charge it. Mine has been stuck at 6% battery for the last half hour! Hopefully this will restore my battery life from 15 minutes to the 2 hours it is rated at.
In other news, I'll be visiting the comic shop again this Saturday after month! This has probably been the longest time I have not been to it. I've missed out on a lot of reading, and hopefully it will translate into a few reviews and rants.
In more laptop news, I also succeeded (after maybe 10 failed attempts) in upgrading the ROM BIOS on my laptop. The trick was to not jump from version 03 to 35 directly, but to flash to an intermediate version first. I also opened up my laptop today, and was disappointed to see that the second (upgradable) memory slot already contained a 256 Mb SODIMM. Now, I'll have to rethink my plans to upgrade it to 1 Gb.
Madison seems to be as boring as ever. I don't seem to have missed anything significant during my vacation. On the other hand, I've surely missed a lot of juicy Mumbai stuff, in the week or so I've been here.
An incredible thing just happened. A drop of sweat just rolled down my forehead and fell on my T-shirt. It's 13°F outside. (That's -10.56°C to you Mumbai readers.) And I'm sweating inside my apartment. Don't you just love heated homes!
It's really late now. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson just got over. I'm gonna be so sleepy at work tomorrow. I might even have to have a coffee to wake up. Usually I have only a tea. Or better yet orange juice.
You can tell I'm really rambling now can't you? Now would probably be a good time to proof this post, but I'm probably going to do that tomorrow. If at all.
Right now I'm up so late because I'm recalibrating the battery in my laptop. You basically fully charge the battery, disable all Windows battery alarms and let it shutdown. Then you plug it in and fully charge it. Mine has been stuck at 6% battery for the last half hour! Hopefully this will restore my battery life from 15 minutes to the 2 hours it is rated at.
In other news, I'll be visiting the comic shop again this Saturday after month! This has probably been the longest time I have not been to it. I've missed out on a lot of reading, and hopefully it will translate into a few reviews and rants.
In more laptop news, I also succeeded (after maybe 10 failed attempts) in upgrading the ROM BIOS on my laptop. The trick was to not jump from version 03 to 35 directly, but to flash to an intermediate version first. I also opened up my laptop today, and was disappointed to see that the second (upgradable) memory slot already contained a 256 Mb SODIMM. Now, I'll have to rethink my plans to upgrade it to 1 Gb.
Madison seems to be as boring as ever. I don't seem to have missed anything significant during my vacation. On the other hand, I've surely missed a lot of juicy Mumbai stuff, in the week or so I've been here.
An incredible thing just happened. A drop of sweat just rolled down my forehead and fell on my T-shirt. It's 13°F outside. (That's -10.56°C to you Mumbai readers.) And I'm sweating inside my apartment. Don't you just love heated homes!
It's really late now. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson just got over. I'm gonna be so sleepy at work tomorrow. I might even have to have a coffee to wake up. Usually I have only a tea. Or better yet orange juice.
You can tell I'm really rambling now can't you? Now would probably be a good time to proof this post, but I'm probably going to do that tomorrow. If at all.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Friday, October 28, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
My blog is worth $28,227.00.
How much is your blog worth?
Yes, another meaningless post for your pleasure!
Friday, October 21, 2005
List of books to buy when in India:
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Stuart J. Russell and Peter Norvig (ISBN: 8120323823, Edition: 2)
OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide To Learning Open Gl Version 1.4 by OpenGL Architecture Review Board et. al. (ISBN: 8129705486, Edition: 4)
Compilers: Principles, Techniques And Tools by Alfred V. Aho, Jeffrey D. Ullman and Ravi Sethi (ISBN: 817808046X)
Fundamentals of Computer Graphics by Peter Shirley
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Time Magazine has released a list of 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. Here's what I've read from that list:
Vikster, if you're reading this, I will suggest that you find and read the only graphic novel in the list - The Watchmen. Not because it's the highest reader rated book in that list (that's probably 'cause it's the most accessible to us proles) but simply because it's a great starting point to a brand new medium. If you like it, I would suggest:
- Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
- The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
- Lord of the Flies - William Golding
- The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
- Neuromancer - William Gibson
- 1984 - George Orwell
- Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
- To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
- Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
- Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Vikster, if you're reading this, I will suggest that you find and read the only graphic novel in the list - The Watchmen. Not because it's the highest reader rated book in that list (that's probably 'cause it's the most accessible to us proles) but simply because it's a great starting point to a brand new medium. If you like it, I would suggest:
- Maus - Art Spiegelman
- Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
- A Contract with God - Will Eisner (actually pretty much anything by Eisner is good.)
- and of course 10 volumes of Sandman - Neil Gaiman and various artists
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Just some random nerdy thoughts today:
This guy just brought to my notice that Firefox lacks a "Make available offline" feature like the one in Internet Explorer. (In IE, apart from the current page, you can also specify a link depth you want to download to, à la wget!) I must say, this is a pretty significant feature that Firefox is missing. Of course, if Firefox is missing a feature, you just look for extensions!
Initially, none of the extensions I found could add this functionality to Firefox. Then I found the updated version of Spiderzilla. (Keep in mind that Spiderzilla doesn't seem to be in development and the version I have linked to, has been repackaged from the original by someone on extensionmirror.)
(At this point, people will say I just should just use wget. Well, yes, I already do, but wget cannot do things like download CSS background images or images loaded by JavaScript. And if would be nice to have a tool integrated into the browser rather than hacking around on the command line each time I want to download a site. I should probably be looking at HTTrack which Spiderzilla embeds. Of course, the real solution would be to use Gekco itself to parse through the page and find all downloadable data.)
Among other things, Hotmail is beta testing a newer interface. (Ajax and all that!) I just hope that they make it cross browser, and compete using quality and not lock-in.
There seems to be a lot of new web-based RSS aggregators out there (My Yahoo, Google Reader and of course BlogLines) but the one I like the most is Start.com by Microsoft. Why? Apart from a very capable interface, it's the only one you can try and use without having to sign in.
This guy just brought to my notice that Firefox lacks a "Make available offline" feature like the one in Internet Explorer. (In IE, apart from the current page, you can also specify a link depth you want to download to, à la wget!) I must say, this is a pretty significant feature that Firefox is missing. Of course, if Firefox is missing a feature, you just look for extensions!
Initially, none of the extensions I found could add this functionality to Firefox. Then I found the updated version of Spiderzilla. (Keep in mind that Spiderzilla doesn't seem to be in development and the version I have linked to, has been repackaged from the original by someone on extensionmirror.)
(At this point, people will say I just should just use wget. Well, yes, I already do, but wget cannot do things like download CSS background images or images loaded by JavaScript. And if would be nice to have a tool integrated into the browser rather than hacking around on the command line each time I want to download a site. I should probably be looking at HTTrack which Spiderzilla embeds. Of course, the real solution would be to use Gekco itself to parse through the page and find all downloadable data.)
Among other things, Hotmail is beta testing a newer interface. (Ajax and all that!) I just hope that they make it cross browser, and compete using quality and not lock-in.
There seems to be a lot of new web-based RSS aggregators out there (My Yahoo, Google Reader and of course BlogLines) but the one I like the most is Start.com by Microsoft. Why? Apart from a very capable interface, it's the only one you can try and use without having to sign in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)