Happy New Year......

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous 2008. May all your lives be filled with love, peace and happiness and may all your dreams come true.

It's becoming an annual event

Looks like meeting at Flurys is becoming an annual event :D 8 of us met yesterday afternoon. Rahat, Archana, Sonea, Nina, Piew, Ruplekha and Trina arrived at various times through the afternoon and we managed to catch up on a bit. One thing that is settled is that we will be organizing a get together in 2008. Do plan ahead to make sure that you do make it. In the meantime, enjoy the photos.

Tujhse Naraaz Nahin Zindagi

Found a link to this clip while surfing today and it's of an old favourite song of mine. This guy has done a fabulous job of singing it. Dont know how many of you saw it when it was first aired. Yesterday was Indrani's b'day and today Rubayat Kadir dropped in. A week back I met up with Amna and Asma. LMC has been top of mind for a while now. To tell you the truth, December is coming up and I'm a bit sad that plans for the Reunion did not work out for this year. And btw on Nov 27th our blog completed 2 years.

That's what friends are for!

Listen to Vinita Nayar wonderful rendition of the song "That's what friends are for". Be sure to leave her a comment or write to her. I'll update the post with a recent photo soon. Until then enjoy the song!

Click to listen

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Somebody gonna get hurt real bad!

The first time I heard of Russell Peters was a couple of years ago when we were visiting some friends. They insisted that we watch it with them right away and we did. It had us rolling on the floor laughing our heads off. Later I found a clip of his on Youtube and put it up on this blog. It was about how Indians and Chinese cant do business together. When I went to visit Sangeeta, earlier this year, she said that she hadnt seen it yet. We discovered then that her son Arjun was a fan of Russel Peters too and he soon downloaded the whole episode for us. I think we watched it several times during those 2 weeks and this second clip became a favourite too. It is from the same show and came to me earlier today from Esther (Roshini) on Facebook. I had a good laugh once more. If you haven't already, you have to see this and the earlier one. Thanks Es for the clip.

Couple more q's
1. btw any of you on facebook?
2. want to contribute to this blog?
leave me a comment.

Write that novel in November

The one you always wanted to write?? Join thousands online to write your book. All that is wanted from you is quantity - 50,000 words at least. About 1700 words per day. Quality is not a requirement here. There is a time limit though. You've got the month of November to do it in. And if you miss it this year, well, there's always next year or the daunting prospect of doing it on your own! This is to get you jump started. I signed up last year too but never ended up writing :D I dont give up easy and so I've signed up again this year. Want to join me?

Website : National Novel Writing Month

If I'm just writing 50,000 words of crap, why bother? Why not just write a real novel later, when I have more time?

There are three reasons.

1) If you don't do it now, you probably never will. Novel writing is mostly a "one day" event. As in "One day, I'd like to write a novel." Here's the truth: 99% of us, if left to our own devices, would never make the time to write a novel. It's just so far outside our normal lives that it constantly slips down to the bottom of our to-do lists. The structure of NaNoWriMo forces you to put away all those self-defeating worries and START. Once you have the first five chapters under your belt, the rest will come easily. Or painfully. But it will come. And you'll have friends to help you see it through to 50k.

2) Aiming low is the best way to succeed. With entry-level novel writing, shooting for the moon is the surest way to get nowhere. With high expectations, everything you write will sound cheesy and awkward. Once you start evaluating your story in terms of word count, you take that pressure off yourself. And you'll start surprising yourself with a great bit of dialogue here and a ingenious plot twist there. Characters will start doing things you never expected, taking the story places you'd never imagined. There will be much execrable prose, yes. But amidst the crap, there will be beauty. A lot of it.

3) Art for art's sake does wonderful things to you. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you want to take naps and go places wearing funny pants. Doing something just for the hell of it is a wonderful antidote to all the chores and "must-dos" of daily life. Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives.

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Decent wine for 10 or less in the US

Read the NYT article on "Happiness for $10 or Less" for more details. While on the subject I wanted to mention that NYT has moved from subscription based access to the "register and read for free" mode. You can now read all their current articles as well as access their archives without having to pay. They've finally realised that they're losing much much more in ad revenues that their gains from subscription fees.


Casa Cadaval Portugal Ribatejano , $8.99, ***
Domaine de l'Ameillaud France , $9, ** ½
Viña Gormaz Spain Ribera del Duero , $9, **
Georges Duboeuf France , $9, **
Altas Cumbres Argentina Mendoza , $9, **
Wyatt California Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 , $10, **
J. Vidal-Fleury France , $10, **
Domaine Monte de Luz , $7, **
Ravenswood California Vintner's Blend , $10, **
Paringa , $9, * ½

Found on one of my regular reads - Lifehacker

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