Front row on Apple

I upgraded to Leopard last week and while playing with the remote on my Macbook, I was introduced to the Apple TV interface on the Front Row. The upgraded interface allows the user to directly see new movie trailers, view TV shows. I was impressed with the very less buffering time and the excellent quality of the trailers. No more Yahoo! movie trailers for me when I can easily access the latest trailers on my Mac without browsing on a website.

TZP-reminding you about childhood

So I watched Taare Zameen Par (TZP), current blockbuster made by Aamir Khan(AK). Initially previewed as a movie for children, it comes as a surprise when the movie tackles a variety of emotions between parents and children. It's nice to see AK's honest effort in making a movie outside the regular masala fare dished out by Bollywood. I wish that this movie had come out a long time back and that would have resulted in less parent pressure and stress on children. The performances in this movie are outstanding (Darsheel, AK, Darsheel's parents, the school teachers) and some scenes linger in your memory for a longer time. My favorite scene is when Ishaan sees Nikumb Sir's painting and it kinda chokes you and makes you cry. The music is mind blowing and my favorite track is "Maa" and "Kholo Kholo".
Excellent movie and I was surprised to see that TZP already figures in the top 250 movies list on IMDB. Way to go...Aamir...!!! Read his blog here

Migrating to the Big Cat

Yup...I finally migrated to Leopard. I haven't been a Mac user for a long time and I did not know how the upgrade process would work out. I am more proficient with Linux distros and Windoze. Neways after reading about the numerous blogs abt backing up using SuperDuper! and iBackup, I was very confused. Manas suggested a very simple technique:
1. Back up all your data. (I used an external hard disk)
2. Back up the ~/User/Library and the ~/Library.
3. Copy all the Applications from the ~/Applications folder

Format your precious Mac and after the 30 minute installation just drag all your applications and their respective folders from your archived copy on the hard disk.

That's it and you are back to working from where you left off. In fact all the Firefox tabs opened up the way it was before I had quitted. Anyways, I did a separate installation of iWork and iLife. Caution: make sure have 20GB of free space on your external disk for your libraries and apps before attempting this.

At night, I had to help out a frnd with Windoze installation on his Dell laptop. The user interface is so bad that you don't know if a check mark indicates an installed driver or device status. Deteriorating status of Windoze installations continues as usual.

Mixed Fruit Jam

Hmmmm..I had Mixed Fruit Jam after a very very long time. This small instance evoked a lot of memories from my childhood. As a child, we used to have different jams for breakfast: orange marmalade, cherry and pineapple. Pineapple was more common and I got bored with pineapple jams. Mango jam was more common in Pune and was a welcome change. Jackfruit jam was the highlight of the occasional Kerala trip. The saving grace in India was the ready availability of mixed fruit jam. I used to have jam sandwich in the middle of the day, practically anytime. Preparing for exams, study leave...the sudden rush of the different flavors such as strawberry, mango, blueberry, pineapple(well) gives you a high akin to alcohol.
Neways thanks to the Patel stores in NJ, I finally bought a bottle of Kissan's Mixed fruit jam and here I am writing this piece abt jam sandwiches. Oh yaa...Jammy is my fav cricketer as well...i had roomie called Jammy as well... and now it's time for me to have a jam sandwich.

A year gone by

A year has gone by...I have the feeling of deja vu when I think about the year gone by. It is similar to looking out of a car traveling at abt 70mph. For some time you notice the trees going by and suddenly you just lose count.. A year gone by is just like that with the trees akin to the days. Some trees/days stand out and linger on for some more time.

The last month has been very hectic and erratic. I lost someone very very special. As fate would have it, I barely had time to grieve over it. I also reached another milestone in my life--can't blog abt that here. I also saw the arrival of two Sagis--Tara and Meher Natasha. Met both the darlings in CT and MI respectively. Lost the Toyota Corolla in a very bad accident. MG went ahead and bought her first SUV-2008 Honda CRV. the previous blog abt the Hertz deal was never utilized. We drove to CT, MI in our sparkling new CRV and logged abt 2K miles on it within 10 days. An average person in the US logs abt 20K miles on his car. I can gladly vouch that we are going to surpass that number by +5K easily.

New Year celebrations were very subdued..saw a couple of movies and then toasted champagne with everyone. I drove back to NJ on 1st, spent abt one hour removing the 1 feet thick blanket of snow on the car, cleaning the driveway. The drive back was very tiring with continuous snow for most of the time.

I hope that this Leap year bring good luck to everyone(specially me)...LOL

Wishing one and all a very Happy New Year...!!!