People started lining up at around 10 PM last night to be able to receive the free gas money. In an age where people camp out for hours to get hold of a gaming console, why I am not surprised?

Even on yelp.com, I regularly see events at Indian restuarants/movies, and seldom even a cooking class.

I, personally, just love Indian food, and even though I don’t cook, I eat it at least once every two days. No other cuisine offers such a deep and varied assortment of flavors in a meal.

इतना अासान होगा कभी सोचा न था!

- सौरभ

1. Driving in the fastest lane at 5 or more mph below the speed limit, and not even realizing that they are holding up the entire traffic flow.
2. Carelessly changing lanes to get on the slower lane just because a trailer truck had to get on the faster lane to overtake someone slow. A truck is HUGE, and needs more length to change lanes. Stop being impatient and let the truck driver move back to the slower lane. If people keep passing him/her on the right, the truck would forever remain on the faster lane. Use common sense.
3. Changing lanes without using an indicator. You’re not slick because you think you got away without using an indicator. You’re an asshole, and never really learned anything from your driving test – always use your indicators.
4. Tailgating. Do it some more when I am driving at 70mph, and I wouldn’t think twice about hitting the brakes just to give you a heart attack. Asshole.
5. Going more than 15 mph over the speed limit. You lack experience, and your car deserves a better driver.
6. Driving with the high beams on when behind me.
7. Not knowing highway merging etiquette. If you’re going fast, don’t slow down to a crawl just to give the merging car a whole minute to merge. Only brake if you can’t change lanes safely, and/or the merging car is almost out of road.
8. Matching speed with the faster lane when driving in the slower lane, just so that everyone behind them is held up until this person gets some common sense.

I think that is all.

1. India got her first female President.
2. Television got some really great new shows.
3. The US still tried to force-feed its way of life and governance to countries worldwide, only at the cost of national pride, credibility, and the economy.
4. Lots of school shootings, including one in India.
5. The resurgence of Apple Inc. as a dominant force in the computing industry.
6. The year of the iPhone. (This needed special mention)
7. India got some leeway from the insurgency efforts of neighboring Pakistan, who was busy trying to clean its own mess.
8. The job market actually improved a lot.
9. USCIS messed up and people got their GCs in record time for a month.
10. The year it started being really cool to be an Indian.

And then:

1. The year I changed my attitude towards people and ideas.
2. The year I realized I could do anything I wanted.
3. The year that actually made me a whole lot wiser.
4. The year I got rid of the mildew on my friends list.
5. The year I added a tame 19,000 miles to my car’s odometer.

I am sure there’s more I could think of, but this is all my sleep-deprived-shindig-stricken mind could come up with this early Tuesday morning.

Have a Wonderful New Year ‘08 !

So, last week, I was in downtown Washington DC for business, and decided to get a hotel room for the night. Someone suggested the ‘Renaissance’. I quickly keyed in the hotel name and location on my iPhone and Google presented me with the address and the phone number. Only problem was that the phone number appeared to have been changed since the last time Google updated their directory. I figured that calling Google’s free 411 service would have the same results, and so decided to call 1-800-555-TELL, which is a Microsoft subsidiary company. The process was something like this:

TELLME: Welcome to TELLME
ME: Business
TELLME: What city and State
ME: Washington DC
TELLME: Business name
ME: Renaissance Washington DC
TELLME: Street or Intersection, or say I am not sure
ME: 9th Street
TELLME: (Address and phone number). Say ‘Text me the info’ to have it sent to your phone.
ME: Text me the info.

As simple as that! The speech recognition was impeccable, even though I was standing on a busy downtown street with a lot of hoo-ha as expected. I was very impressed.

10 years ago:

1. I was trying to get in a good college.
2. My primary computer was a desktop PC running Windows 95. The processor was 66Mhz Pentium.
3. I was experimenting with Linux in a big way.
4. I did not have an Internet connection at home.
5. I used to dial in to a few BBS’ across the world.
6. I was excited about being able to finally have a cable TV connection at home.
7. I was a computer “whiz-kid”.
8. I couldn’t cook to save my life.
9. I wanted to grow up to be an engineer working for the Indian Government.
10. I never thought I would move to a distant country.

Now, things that have remained unchanged:

1. The Simpsons is still the longest running prime-time animated series.
2. Human cloning is still banned.
3. Tony Blair is still the Prime Minister of Britain (although he’s retiring on June 27th).
4. India’s President is still from the minorities.
5. Toyota Prius is still quite a buzzword.
6. The middle east is still strife-torn.
7. The space race is still on, albeit between the West and the rest of the world.

I just registered my profile at dodgeball.com. It’s a pretty unique service that lets you take the whole online social networking thing offline. You can tell all your friends about your current whereabouts by simply sending a text message from your cellphone to DODGE. Not only that, the service allows you to broadcast simple messages like party reminders/invitations. It is integrated fairly well with Google Maps and Google Local, giving you the option to add reviews about places you go to through your cellphone.

The service is limited to very few cities at present, and luckily Minneapolis/St. Paul is one of them. Not to be taken lightly, the service also offers a romance angle in that you can admit a crush on your friend or even their friends, and then get the option to review their current whereabouts if they so choose to reveal! Everything is handled through text messages. I can finally see myself fully utilizing the monthly text message allowance on my cellphone. All I need is some friends!

The website was started by two graduate students a few years ago, and bought by Google early last year for an undisclosed amount of money. I think this service makes perfect sense for them as it allows them to integrate 4 of their services – Maps, Local, Mobile, and Orkut, to bring out a better user experience.

If you’re in the twin cities and reading this, feel free to send me an email to be added as my friend!