as i munch on murg biryani, or as we say in my country, "arroz con pollo"

The room setup at the President Hotel is pretty sweet; the room key is a smart card which, when placed in a slot at the room's entrance, will kick in the power for your room.

There's a campaign being promoted by The Times of India: "Refresh Bangalore: Put the bang back in Bangalore".  I'm guessing that they'll ignore the impending name change.  Gotta dig the IE Refresh icon.

Bangalore's traffic is fucking insane.  But it's a consistent sort of insanity; you know that lanes are a joke, and that people will drive across the flow of traffic on a regular basis.  So you're working with a different set of assumptions than in the US (well, except maybe Boston), where things look great, except in the back of your mind you know that some fuckhead on his phone will suddenly plow into your car as they try to punch the Call Waiting button with their earlobe.  You're also dealing with a sea of subcompacts, three-wheeled autorickshaws and motorcycles, so traffic is very fluid because every available space is taken up.  In the US, Captain Earlobe is probably driving a hulking monstrosity that wouldn't even fit the street here.

---

I noticed while at work today that blogspot sites were giving me a 500 error; the last time i saw a sitewide failure like that was MySpace when their colo lost power, so i hit blogsearch.google.com and put in 'blogspot'.  The first hit was a BoingBoing report of Indian government censorship.  Strangely enough, i can hit blogspot fine from my hotel's network.

I got majorly played today by some extremely persuasive salespeople.  First, i went to Mysore Silk Emporium to find the missus a nice sari.  And i did.  Many of them.  However, it turns out they cost a lot of money, so i had to pick one.  Naturally, i picked the most expensive one (Kim always picks the most expensive thing when we go shopping, which is a testament to her refined sense of taste, and also a compliment to me, i hope).  Then, my driver, Gowda, took me to the Lal Bagh Botanical Garden; he tried to warn me not to get roped into a guided tour, but i was ambushed as soon as i got out of my car.  Raji did a good job, but he also roped me into buying some seed packets, which sounded like a good idea, but he tried pushing all sorts of seeds on me when all i wanted was some lotus seeds.  In the end i agreed to take some jasmine seeds as well.  Then he asked me to pay for the tour, which of course he didn't mention at the start.  Punk.  As i was in an almost entirely non-liquid state, we agreed that he'd deliver the seeds to my hotel on Thursday afternoon, whereupon i would pay him for the seeds and the tour.  The lesson, as ever: i'm a sucker and a pushover.

You know what i miss the most, after my wife?  Pork.  I could murder for some bacon.  I miss pizza, too, but all they have here is Pizza Hut and Domino's, and i think i can handle a few more days of pizzalessness rather than subject myself to their almost­-­but­-­not­-­entirely­-­unlike­-­pizza.

as i munch on murg biryani, or as we say in my country, "arroz con pollo"

The room setup at the President Hotel is pretty sweet; the room key is a smart card which, when placed in a slot at the room's entrance, will kick in the power for your room.

There's a campaign being promoted by The Times of India: "Refresh Bangalore: Put the bang back in Bangalore".  I'm guessing that they'll ignore the impending name change.  Gotta dig the IE Refresh icon.

Bangalore's traffic is fucking insane.  But it's a consistent sort of insanity; you know that lanes are a joke, and that people will drive across the flow of traffic on a regular basis.  So you're working with a different set of assumptions than in the US (well, except maybe Boston), where things look great, except in the back of your mind you know that some fuckhead on his phone will suddenly plow into your car as they try to punch the Call Waiting button with their earlobe.  You're also dealing with a sea of subcompacts, three-wheeled autorickshaws and motorcycles, so traffic is very fluid because every available space is taken up.  In the US, Captain Earlobe is probably driving a hulking monstrosity that wouldn't even fit the street here.

---

I noticed while at work today that blogspot sites were giving me a 500 error; the last time i saw a sitewide failure like that was MySpace when their colo lost power, so i hit blogsearch.google.com and put in 'blogspot'.  The first hit was a BoingBoing report of Indian government censorship.  Strangely enough, i can hit blogspot fine from my hotel's network.

I got majorly played today by some extremely persuasive salespeople.  First, i went to Mysore Silk Emporium to find the missus a nice sari.  And i did.  Many of them.  However, it turns out they cost a lot of money, so i had to pick one.  Naturally, i picked the most expensive one (Kim always picks the most expensive thing when we go shopping, which is a testament to her refined sense of taste, and also a compliment to me, i hope).  Then, my driver, Gowda, took me to the Lal Bagh Botanical Garden; he tried to warn me not to get roped into a guided tour, but i was ambushed as soon as i got out of my car.  Raji did a good job, but he also roped me into buying some seed packets, which sounded like a good idea, but he tried pushing all sorts of seeds on me when all i wanted was some lotus seeds.  In the end i agreed to take some jasmine seeds as well.  Then he asked me to pay for the tour, which of course he didn't mention at the start.  Punk.  As i was in an almost entirely non-liquid state, we agreed that he'd deliver the seeds to my hotel on Thursday afternoon, whereupon i would pay him for the seeds and the tour.  The lesson, as ever: i'm a sucker and a pushover.

You know what i miss the most, after my wife?  Pork.  I could murder for some bacon.  I miss pizza, too, but all they have here is Pizza Hut and Domino's, and i think i can handle a few more days of pizzalessness rather than subject myself to their almost­-­but­-­not­-­entirely­-­unlike­-­pizza.