Liebster Blog Award

I was waiting for an the anniversary of my last post to post a new one. And here it is.


Time flies without regard to anything. But if you asking me what happened in the past year-it is truly just handful of important events I remember. Maybe, that is all I need to remember but somewhere deep down it hurts that knowingly I’ve missed documenting the events that took place, the thoughts that passed through, the unimplemented ideas, completed projects which took place all through the year.

Call it sanity; contented-ness or even vanity-it surely cheers me to up to go over chapters of life to perk me up.

So, here’s thanking Rads from bottom of my heart for this blog award. The award meaning from German word it means 'Beloved'. Feel that.Rads is a blogger friend and she's back to blogging full time again.

The rules say I should pass it on to five others but please feel free to take the tag yourself and spread the love.

Every beloved object is the center point of a paradise.
-Novalis

Where do GAP, M&S cloths come from?

Labels are like religion in US (and probably every where else these days).
And just like all other religions, the source is always ignored.

During my shopping trips, I've entered anything marked 'Sale' in Commericals or Jayanagar and picked up 'Export Quality' cloths.
Of course I knew these were rejected exports but export material nevertheless. So it's irresistible not to pick up cute top you couldn't find even in shopper's stop!

I had never given a look at the names, until during recent trip to bangalore, the 'export quality sale' cloths were all in OLD NAVY and GAP hangers.

Recently, reading In Spite the of Gods by Edward Luce (post on this later), finally got to know the source of :


The cloths sold in Marks & Spencers, GAP, Banana Republic, Pierre Cardin and Abbercrombie usually arrive from Gokaldas Express who's small units are spread across Bangalore, India. These are just few of their clients who turn out two million garment pieces every month!

The Green Hornet

I love the movie previews.
It makes you feel like a Premier except for lack of Champagne and Movie stars and Red-carpet and paparazzi.

Okay, there is nothing great about watching a movie fortnight a ahead except you watched it even before firstdayfirstshow (FDFS).

But still, kind of feel good when the whole Multiplex is booked just for this single movie screening.
The blond attractive PR scans our passes. She had a couch bag and nine west boots. Wonder how much they pay her to scan passes and watch the movie with us.

Have surrender our cell phones/Ipads/cameras etc at the counter and we get patted down by man who looks like someone from MIB.

The MIB agent even made the lady in front of me to check-in her tablet. I mean iPad..that stupid thing doesn’t even have a camera. Will she sit and blog about the movie inside the theater.



Well, back to subject. Right after five minutes into the movie, I was devastated.

At first I thought I’ve watching Will Ferrell for first few minutes.
Then it hit me that Seth Rogan has lost oodles of weight. Now he looks like Mini-Will

I really thought I’m going to watch Mr.This Year’s Sexist Man Alive after mini-will. Still wishing even after the Asian Guy turns up.

  

Oh no, the movie which wanted to watch was Green Lantern. Duh.

Which Moron decides to confuse people releasing movies with identical first names (GREEN)at the same time—that too during busiest time of year.

I won’t spoil by going into details of the story. Here are few comments

•  The movie was pretty funny. But given a choice I would watch Gulliver’s Travels in theater and Green Hornet on DVD.

• Nothing like Batcar. But liked the Black Beauties used by Hornet-Neat accessories and retro fittings in the car. (means lots of guns, explosives, record-player and even a parachute!)

• Smoke gun by hero—funny. Gas Mask by villain—funniest!!!

• The leading lady is actually older than the hero(s).

Cameron Diaz says her age (almost REAL age!) aloud. Kudos to graceful aging. 

• Finally, this is one the rare movie(book) where the superhero doesn’t have any powers!!!!! He's just a Poor Little Rich Guy.

Note: Heard from colleague who grew up in 50's that in earlier TV series, the Asian guy in The Green Hornet was played by Bruce Lee.

A year flies by

So, here I am a year older and hating it. Sigh.

This year has been a whirlwind. Here is a summary of events:
Sep2009-Dec2010:
Had some wonderful guests over visiting from blore-cousins, sil, nieces
Took a weeklong Disneyworld vacation
Visited Blore for a month in Aug and enjoyed the festivities.
Quit my job-That’s a first!!
Led a bachelorette life and almost enjoyed it
Had too many parties
Started on the new job


Never thought discontinuing writing would affect me(mental state) in a way I never thought it could.

It has been over more than a year since I’ve stopped writing and more than two years since I’ve stopped keeping up the appointment at the gym.

Not sure why.

Blamed my ex-boss, blamed the commute and blaming the rented house we live in. But deep in my heart I know it is me and taking a vacation 8000 miles away (aks visiting home) won’t make a difference.

I’ll try to make an honest attempt to revive this blog. Share experiences, new skills, fresh ideas or bother everyone with my rants! At least, crossing fingers that thought to keep stress at a distance.

The art of eating american breakfast

Friends and cousins visiting for a month or two love to hate the american breakfast. Here is an exert of an email sent to friend with suggestions:

Hey S,

Glad you are enjoying the stay at furnished apartment. Your breakfast stories are hilariously sadding. Here are few tips from experience:

1. The round bread-like object which you suggested is like a chew toy to your puppy is actually called a 'Bagel'. First toast it and then slap on some cheese before consuming it with coffee. Believe me, you will find it addictive.

2. The one without any holes is the 'english muffin'. Follow the same as above to relish it :)

3. It is not a bland like dosa. It must be a waffle' or 'pancakes' consumed with maple syrup. It becomes very sloppy once you add the maple syrup to it. I would stay away from it unless you are craving sweet in the morning.

4. You think oatmeal is your diabetic grandma's BF back home...so let's just not talk about it.

5. Cereals is not just cornflakes...try the small-round ones called 'Cheerios', the square-ones called 'Shredded wheat' which tastes like cardboard unless it is frosted with lots and lots of sugar!

6. Don't eat doughnuts every morning for BF unless you want to put on tens of pounds in a month like me.

And finally if you are craving for some spicy, hot breakfast, I suggest a Taco Bell :-)

xoxo.

Toxins overdose

If processed milk can be hazardous, imagine the effect of cosmetic products. Hmm.
Recently, a friend forwarded the link to this website:

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

The cosmetic database gives a list of all daily products we use along with the 'Hazard' based on toxin level of all ingredients of the product.

The deo, day-moisturizer, sunscreen, shampoo, conditioner and even the toothpaste we regularly use have hazard level of 6 or 7 (1 being the least).
And I thought I was protecting myself slapping on some sunscreen!

Browsing through the site on range of products, i've arrived at the conclusion that the amount of products I use to get just the frizz-free hair just might give me some kind of cancer or make me infertile in few years.

Guess it's time to go back to good old shikakai and coconut oil

Awards and a Tag

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well
-Voltaire

I thank Preethi for passing on these awards. I'm honored (and happy!). This appreciative gesture means a lot to me.

These awards also came with a tag. There it goes.

1.What is your current obsession?
Blogging, Learning html (my blog has new look every few days!), planning beach trips for the weekend!

2. What are you wearing today?
Like most the days, its jeans and a shirt for work.

3. What's for dinner?
Hot coconut Uppma (I love having breakfast for dinner!)

4. What’s the last thing you bought?
Milk at the grocery store!

5. What are you listening to right now?
Humming sound of AC

6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?
They are excellent cooks and post mouth watering recipes!

7. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Bangalore

8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?
Sunscreen lotion, White kurtas, sandals!

9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Of course, pay a visit home!

10. Which language do you want to learn?
Sanskrit (at least to read some hymns) , French (simply), Spanish (if i need to survive in west coast! and Chinese (since they might dominate the world in 10years or less!)

11. What’s your favorite quote?
"If you think you can, you can"

12. Who do you want to meet right now?
Parents and my sisters!

13. What is your favorite colour?
Black and Red.

14. What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own closet?
My 8-year old salwar(which still fits, wonder how)brings lot of good memories!

15. What is your dream job?
Travel associate, Researcher (should be allowed to use 'google'), Beer Taster...

16. What’s your favorite magazine?
Oprah, Cosmo and you can guess the rest!

17. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?
Fine food and drinks with friends.

18. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?
Wearing clothes you are not comfortable with or you don't fit into fully!

19. Who are your style icons?
My grandmother who was impeccable all the time. I still cannot get her style or elegance

20. Describe your personal style.?
Comfortable yet pleasing to the eye.

21. What are you going to do after this?
Start working (i've been blogging on office hours!)

22. What are your favorite movies?
Duet, Geentanjali, DDLJ, HSSH (any 90's bollywood movie), Devil wears Prada and any hollywood sci-fic!

24. What are three cosmetic/makeup/perfume products that you can't live without?
Olay moisturizer/ Eyeliner and Compact/Perry Ellis

23. What inspires you?
People with enthusiasm who pass it along!

24. What do you carry in your bag?
House/car keys, credit cards, mobile, tissues, chapstick, compact, comb, safetypins, rubberbands, receipts (no wonder it's nicknamed as trashcan!)

25. What do you do when you “have nothing to wear” (even though your closet’s packed)?
Wear an outfit I don't like grumbling but go for an awesome accessory (necklace, bangle or Bag!)

26. Coffee or tea?
Coffee anytime!

27. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?
Drink vodka and pass out.

28. What is the meaning of your name?
Mythri means friendship.

29. Which other blogs you love visiting?
Too many to list.

30. Favorite Dessert/Sweet?
Hot carrot halwa or a cold rasmalli

31. Favorite Season ?
Winter in Bangalore, Fall in Boston!

32) If I come to your house now, what would u cook for me?
Instant MTR Rava Idli with green chutney:)

33)What's your current mood?
Undecided-happy filling out the tag but nervous about the afternoon presentation!

The rules are:
Respond and rework – Answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and add one more question of your own.Then tag eight or ten other set of people.
I would like to share these awards and tag....

Ritu
Vaish
Rads
Lafemmereva
Sands
Minal
Devaki
Kokonad

Fictitious memory lane!

It goes all the way back to the honeymoon days (means more than six years ago) when I penned down the first memoir fiction. Wanted to share this amateur piece of work:

Visiting In-laws and Return of the Bride
-
It was ringing of the phone that jolted me out of sleep. I saw the alarm beside me showing 1am, I grabbed the phone and sat next to window sill covered with snow on the other side.
My brother-in-law’s voice was loud and clear on other side, “did I wake you up, I’m sorry, just wanted you guys to know that the flight just left the airport now”. I murmured an ok and went back to bed.

That’s when my mind started tracking events from past six months. “Was it already six months” I thought. It is as though just yesterday I bid my parents and in-laws goodbye and flew with hubby to this alien land called USA.
Well, right after we settled in, I went back to my usual jean-clad girl. Seeing me only in saris for a month back home, my hubby was astonished to see me so comfortable only in jeans and tee.
Nevertheless, he didn’t complain.

Slowly I too began to backtrack. My medium ‘red bindi’ got replaced by small ‘black bindi’.
‘Fall’ started and I had to flaunt my new boots, so off came my sacred toe-rings(my grandma would have strangled me if she was here!!).
My long gold earring were replaced with silver studs bought at the mall and my gold bangles swapped for funky beads bracelet shopped at the ‘gems show’; so on and so forth the replacements grew and I was back to looking like some happy-go-lucky college grad.

It was already 6 months of marital bliss when by hubby decided it was time to get his parents to visit us in US.
Expect for weekly phone calls, I hadn’t interacted with my in-laws much during one month back home after marriage, so I was anxious to meet them and above of all I was happy that I will have company during daytime when hubby was off to work and readily agreed to his proposal.
After months of planning and preparation by restless hubby, both in-laws passports, visas, plane tickets and medical insurance was ready at last.
Right after all this the reins of the show were passed on to me.
All I had to do was play the perfect hostess, make them at ease, plan for trips or that’s what I thought. The day I started to make shopping list, panic hit me. Finally I decided to go about in steps to be ready for my in-laws.

First step: Shopping (Hubby whined that shopping seems to be the first step for everything for women and I agreed without tetchy!)
The small condo of our which horded two had to be modified to host four people for six months!
So first and foremost I needed to have a twin mattresses and extra comforters. Even thought spring was about to start, you can never believe the ‘New England’ weather. So it was bedding, bedding and more bedding. Then it was more and more of the crockery and the utensils and the toiletries and the list were endless.

Second step: Jewelry
Out came my jewelry box from the safe. All my silver, funky items were replaced by traditional gold bangles, earrings and I slipped on my toe-rings too. After all I wanted to be the prefect DIL. Third step: Cleaning

With so much shopping and so little space, everything seemed crammed. And the closet had to be let out for two more people.
I began to clear the clutter and veil my lingerie and cosmetics.
Hubby thought this whole episode was very funny, doing more shopping and cleaning up after that. I ignored his comments and went on to tackle the kitchen. When I slid into the bed that night, my body ached but my kitchen shone like picture perfect for ‘Vim’ ad!!!!!

This is when I came back to reality, sat up on the bed and remembered the phone call that had woken me up. I glanced my bedroom which I had tastefully decorated (thanks to Martha Stewart and Kmart items!!) and fell back to sleep blissfully thinking everything is perfect for tomorrow.

Finally the D-day arrived; hubby gave me clear instructions to prepare lunch and rushed to office. I prepared my atte’s(MIL) favorite chutney and mava(FIL)’s preferred ‘rasam’ and got ready. Hubby picked up me from home and we were at the airport at noon. My in-laws arrived and after usual hugs and wishes we drove back home.

I served them lunch and waited anxious for my results. At last my FIL spoke “the food is excellent, it’s so much better compared to what airlines served us”
I was thrilled like I had passed my first subject in distinction and looked at hubby who was happily enjoying his ‘savige’ payasam!
After lunch I took my in-laws for a guide tour around the condo and our apartment. Seems like MIL was impressed with my decorations and I again passed the second subject with a remark,” since only two of you live, it shouldn't’t be much work around the house cleaning”. I didn’t care about the last statement, I was just happy that they were contented.

Next morning was a Saturday. Even then my alarm rang at 7am (it seemed like pretty early to wake up for a weekend!). I prepared the filter coffee (thank god I had remembered to get that madras coffee filter and packets of ‘kwality’ coffee powder from India), served coffee to in-laws and hubby’s face lit up like a chandelier when he got his filter coffee in bed!!!!
We decided to hit the mall and hubby suggested we can visit the temple on the way and give a small tour of the county too. I got dressed as usual in my jeans and jacket and came out to the living room to join everyone. My FIL observed my face for a while and asked “Why don’t you put on a bigger bindi, I could hardly see your black bindi on the forehead”. Oooops!!! I had forgotten that I have to ditch my back eyeliner and return to the red ‘sringar’ kumkum tube.

I was about to hurry back in to change the ‘bindi’ when my MIL spoke “I thought you can wear one of those saris lying in your closet hanger to the temple”. I had forgotten that hubby had suggested temple on the way to mall.
I stepped out after half-hour later admiring myself that I looked gorgeous in the embroidery sari and the colorful bindi that’s when my hubby sneaked up behind me and whispered,
“Thank god, I’m will be getting my South Indian Bride back for a few months at least”…………..

Label Cloud/Tag Cloud for Blogger

I hate the Label widget provided by Blogger. So searched round and implemented the code to use the Label Cloud here
Thanks to phydeaux3 for wonderful instructions, got it right on the first run!!

Here's how to add a Label Cloud/Tag Cloud to your blog.

NOTE: Backup your template before making any changes. This is a life(blog)-saver!

Of travelling

I love day-trips. There are no slogging over internet for competitive prices on flight-hotel-car combo, nada of shopping-lists, packing is almost nil and thankfully no delayed flights!

Hey, I love the rush of vegas (who’s going to travel 8-hour flight I can as well go to Europe instead of travelling coast-to-coast) or prospect of miami beach (where you need to fight over square inches of sand to plop on) in precious few summer days.

So of lately, , we have been setting out on weekends for isolated beaches located in nearby local towns. The secluded destinations we make a trip to provide break from television, laptop tranquility we ‘need’ during the weekends.

But of course, there sheltered places are so easy to miss or maybe it’s just me.
As usual I was the navigator glued to the GPS instead of watching out for road signs (stupid GPS is addictive), so I totally missed the sign which actually read ‘Castle Rock’.
Actually come to think about it, I was ogling at the ‘Castle’ –like bungalow build next to this beach and thought it was the name of a house!

Thankfully K has more sign-viewing sense than moi and stopped the car.

As we got down, I debated that there is is no way there’s a beach down that alley and decided not to tug my heavy bag nor the camera. Lo and behold, the pathway actually led to the rocky beach!
After some rock-climbing we reached the top and it was a wonderful sight.

Sigh, no camera :(

I desperately wanted a poto for FB, so climbed down (that’s always a pain-in-the-butt),made it to the car in one-piece and climbled back up.
Lesson of the day: There’s a Kodak moment when you least expect one!

After an hour of sitting idle and clicking pictures we moved on to the next spot in the town. This was a small park stretched for a view of ocean and Marblehead Harbor on either sides.

Choosing ocean view over harbor we settled on the cute isolated beach under the canopy talking about the past, future and munching on Nature Valley bars. It might have been an hour or just few minutes but it sure did quench the summer-day-out thirst.




View from top of the castle rock


It's an adventure getting to the beach navigating through the sharp rocks.

The weekend concert

The free summer concerts are very popular in NorthEast where Mr. Sun decides to shower us with sunshine for quarter of a year.
This weekend our town hosted an Irish band. The concerts are usually held in a park but our glorious town has a stage (with waterfall background) in centre of the downtown!
This make-shift stage provides budding and old-time musicians to showcase their talents.
The weather was amazing this Friday evening (imagine it was pouring in the morning) as we walked a mile to partake in the event.
There were around more than 75people, mostly elderly crowd probably driven down from the Senior Centre. But the enthusiasm was amazing.

While K and me at the most clapped to the folk songs, they tap performed Irish-dance, duet for slower melody and sung along with actions for this Unicorn song!

BTW, did you know why Unicorns are no longer seen?Here’s the Irish folk song describing their folly:

A long time ago, when the Earth was green
There was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen
They'd run around free while the Earth was being born
And the loveliest of all was the unicorn

The Lord seen some sinning and it gave Him pain
And He says, "Stand back, I'm going to make it rain"
He says, "Hey Noah, I'll tell you what to do
Build me a floating zoo,
and take some of those...

Green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
Don't you forget My unicorns

Old Noah was there to answer the call
He finished up making the ark just as the rain started to fall
He marched the animals two by two
And he called out as they came through
Hey Lord,

I've got green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but Lord, I'm so forlorn
I just can't find no unicorns"

And Noah looked out through the driving rain
Them unicorns were hiding, playing silly games
Kicking and splashing while the rain was falling
Oh, them silly unicorns

There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Noah cried, "Close the door because the rain is falling
And we just can't wait for no unicorns"

The ark started moving, it drifted with the tide
The unicorns looked up from the rocks and they cried
And the waters came down and sort of floated them away
That's why you never see unicorns to this very day

Wandering

You might have noticed the change in appearance of the blog.
Well, I want to update the header/sidebar with my photographs. So catching up on HTML tutorial which will ‘hopefully’ enhance my knowledge to modify the template.

Ahem..let’s see how far that goes.

Taking about learning…..I guess the only formal training I’ve completed is my engineering (thank the lucky stats?).
All through my early years I’ve been jumping learning one skill or other. Here’s the list:
a)Veena: Few months, got scared I’ll lose my fingers (hey, I was seven!!)
b)Classic dance: 2 years of training and a small performance
c)Sketching: 1 year. Had to stay after school on Saturdays and revisit the school on Sundays for the class (which completely erased the concept any holiday)
d)Athletics/Volleyball: 3years. Crestfallen unable to make it to State level or maybe I was just too lazy to get up early
e)Roller Skating: 2 years, same reason as above!
f)Vedic Astrology: 2years

And now you know why the blog is named ‘mosey mind’!

P.S. If you are reading this post, consider yourself tagged and list your unfinished-schooling.

IBC award!

Rads tagged me with this wonderful award. As usual my procrastination kicked in and i've been pushing off passing it on.

These simple rules have to be followed once you recive the award:

Link the person who tagged you
Copy the image above, the rules and the questionnaire in this post
Post this in one or all of your blogs
Answer the four questions following these Rules
Recruit at least seven (7) friends on your Blog Roll by sharing this with them
Come back to BLoGGiSTa iNFo CoRNeR (PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE THIS LINK) at http://bloggistame.blogspot.com/ and leave the URL of your Post in order for you/your Blog to be added to the Master List
Have Fun!
The questions with my answers:

The person who tagged you: Rads
His/her site's title and url: http://rads-blogazine.blogspot.com/
Date when you were tagged: July 7th, 2009
Persons you tagged: I tag the following...

Chitra
Preethi
Usha
Ritu
Chitra

Vaish
Syamantek

Female foeticide=Runaway Brides?

Choosing a pink/blue carriage, nursery wall color are made easier thanks to sex determination available in the fifth-month scan (of course in the western world).

In India sex determination is against the law, I believe its a blessing.
Female feticide has been prevalent in the society-city or rural, it’s always a covert operation.
The statistics reports that the falling sex ratio of the country is a demographic disaster that is waiting to happen... Compared to 1991 when there were no districts having less than 800 girls per thousand boys, the census data of 2001 revealed that 16 districts are having sex ratios below 800 in the country.

Why are these statistics important?
Well, there's a reason we learn History--to make sure we try not to repeat the mistakes again. However, lessons can be learnt by comparing similar circumstances.

Thanks to China’s 30-year-old population-planning policy and customary preference for boys, the male-female ratio is 120:100.
The traditional thinking is best explained described in the ancient "Book of Songs" (1000-700 B.C.):
"When a son is born,
Let him sleep on the bed,
Clothe him with fine clothes,
And give him jade to play...
When a daughter is born,
Let her sleep on the ground,
Wrap her in common wrappings,
And give broken tiles to play..."

Ironically the illegal prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortions have led to high bride-prices in China.

Except from the article
"China -- With no eligible women in his village, Zhou Pin, 27 years old, thought he was lucky to find a pretty bride whom he met and married within a week, following the custom in rural China.
Ten days later, Cai Niucuo vanished, leaving behind her clothes and identity papers. She did not, however, leave behind her bride price: 38,000 yuan, or about $5,500, which Mr. Zhou and his family had scrimped and borrowed to put together.
When Mr. Zhou reported his missing spouse to authorities, he found his situation wasn't unique. In the first two months of this year, Hanzhong town saw a record number of scams designed to extract high bride prices in a region with an oversupply of bachelors."

Guess, some lessons will be learnt the hard way.
(Reeling into future TOI headline: 'Runaway bride reported from Kurukshetra again. Bride-price and jewels worth 10crores missing')
Ok, maybe that's going too far. But you get the point.

To support against female foeticide, please pledge on Laadli

Air France mid air crash Snopes!

Over the past month, I've received at least four forwards about the air France break up in mid-air and the final photograph capturing the terrible event.
How legit it is? Well, for starters the moment I looked the picture I knew it was from the most favorite tele-serial I follow. Avid followers of Lost cannot miss Kate trying to put on the oxygen mask.
However, if you not into sci-fi and never watched single episode of this drama you could always land on Snopes to verify the authenticity of the article.
Right, this is the site I landed when I 'googled' air-france-mid-air-crash phase.
snopes has the most interesting write-ups on legends which are thoroughly categorized and sub-categorized(politics, history, religion, urbanlegands...etc)

Here is a scary true fact: http://www.snopes.com/lost/sixpence.asp--who knew the innocent nursery rhyme was code for pirates. tsk. tsk.

Twitter URL

Well, there's something to learn everyday.
Posting a tweet today with a long url made by count to -11. So googled for info to get all the contents in a single line, here's what I found:
-------------
Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters. If someone mentions a URL in a Twitter message a lot of the available characters are already taken.
Twitteriffic also uses TinyURL. Twitteroo used to generate urltea.com
URLs, but recently it has implemented rurl.org.

According to Google, these are the most popular URL shortening services used on Twitter.com.

TinyURL.com - references
urltea.com - references
snipurl.com - references

rurl.org - references
tweetl.com - references
dwarfurl.com - references

urlx.org - references
kurl.nl - references
tinypic.com - references
shorl.com - references
digbig.com - references
snurl.com - references
shurl.net- references
doiop.com- references
shorttext.com- references
301url.com- references
-------
Happy Tweeting!!!

How to live rent free in USA

Link: How you can live rent free in the United States of America :-)

Read the article to get all the details...the following are some of the links on the web if you ever decide to leave your day-job and decide to become a free loader(not quite) :-)

Resources mentioned in the article:
The Caretaker Gazette has been around for 27 years, supplement their regular publications with daily or weekly job updates
Workamper News for 21 and supplement their regular publications with daily or weekly job updates
Workers on Wheels for 15 and offers a free e-zine
craigs-list ads
internships at farms
Mature single women can always become sorority/fraternity house directors
Teach English in China and Korea

Cheap travel!

Well, first of all its not *very* cheap unless you are travelling in trio. But If you don't own a car or hate driving or want to *see* US of A in short span of time or can't carter visiting parents this is of the best site:


http://gotobus.com/


These are typically Chinese run travel tours mainly concentrated in East and West coasts. I've travelled on their Washington, Las Vegas tours and its pretty okay. The travel, loading is covered, we need to pay for the food and the entrance tickets.

DesiCow and DesiCrunch

The latest practical websites targeted for the 'desi' market:

DesiCow:
Its always a pain to book round trip plane tickets.
Need to make phone calls to friends first and ask for travel agent, call dozen of travel agents to get quotes and except for the friends circle there's no way to know if you're getting the same rate as the guy sitting next to you on the plane back home.

DesiCow has come up with a solution to see quotes from multiple travel agents in single site.
Just enter the trip details and wait for travel agents to bid! The only issue is we need to deal with the travel agents directly for payment instead of paying through the website.
However, I did get errors on the page trying the check their 'How much others paid' feature. Hopefully with their growing database and traffic the RC version will be out soon.
And thanks to Nitin, Amit and Sameer for opting out on google ads :)


DesiCrunch:
Few days ago when a school friend who moved to Boston (of course after getting married) wanted to file for H1.
She requested me to give a list of consulting companies in Boston. Ask me for a deal and I'll give it but my knowledge of consulting companies is limited since I never had a need to apply for one.
However, being a good samaritan I emailed a college friend who had recently got her papers stamped, got the required info, reviews and passed it on.

Thanks to Desicrunch, they have a list of companies and reviews written by employees readily available for wanna-be-HIs.
Navigate through the site is pretty straightforward for various services.
The forum is up and running but not packed yet. I hope the administrators can provide some answers. Registrations seems to be a bit slow too.
Desi Wiki (part of desicrunch) has useful collection of tit bits (from what to bring to US to theaters in local cities). Beware, some of the new topics that are written purely out of boredom.(right, anyone visiting the website can edit them).


P.S. Thanks to KC for the links.

The 'Doh' moment!

Last weekend I visited a family friend to deliver some goodies from the vacation.
Here is the expert from the conversation with their twins:

BTW...that's the Paint i've been toying with recently.