Ties to India

Wow Factor of India: Ties to India: "I just got mentioned in a blog posting. See me all dressed up, wearing ties!"

I Shaved a Wall

I recently took a photo of a wall on a music store in Glendale, which was a mural in remembrance of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The side wall of the building had signs hung up which I wanted to erase, and I thought I could do this image retouch using Gimp, the GNU Image Manipulation Program.

My Friend's Zinfandel

My old boss, Jason, has made available his vineyard's first zinfandel release. According to the website, the barrel tasting notes state, "Vibrant, med purple garnet color. Tons of jammy berry fruit - raspberry, blackberry. Ripe berry fruit dominates. Excellent structure with good acid, med tannins, and alcohol in balance." According to me, this is a great wine to sip on cool (or cold) California evenings.

Solution to Missing Mirrors

The bathrooms at work at being remodeled, which is great. We are permitted to use the rooms before they are one hundred percent complete, which also is great. The bathrooms are sans mirrors, which is not so great. Someone at work posted some mirror replacements, which is funny. I love the creativity and fun at DreamWorks Animation!

Indian Fast Food

I categorize Indian fast food into either dhabas or street food. Dhabas are usually road side eateries with a fast food feel. They serve meals, but don't have the ambiance to match fine dining. Street food consists of vendors selling items from a cart or out of a booth. Some of the best food can be found at places that don't even have a sign out front. Anything else is a restaurant, and not really fast food, in my opinion.

American Fast Food Abroad

One of the things I found interesting about traveling last year are the differences in American fast food chains when they are opened in other countries. Consider this bit of dialog from the 90's movie Pulp Fiction:

Jules: You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in France?
Brett: No.
Jules: Tell 'em, Vincent.
Vincent: A Royale with cheese.
Jules: A Royale with cheese! You know why they call it that?
Brett: Because of the metric system?
Jules: Check out the big brain on Brett!

King of TT

I never really played table tennis until I moved to India. There, it seems to be a very popular activity. Since I was such a horrible player, I became known as टी टी का माहाराजा or "Ti Ti ka Maharaja - grand king of table tennis". At the DreamWorks Animation office in Glendale, there are several tables and just about any time of the day you can find people playing.

We recently held a tournament, and someone captured a video of the final match. I am posting it here. I don't know what happened to game two, but hopefully YouTube user ceark will post it in the near future. Enjoy!