...shoOOonya...

Well … this is one review which took a lot of time to get from my laptop to my blog. This month, work kept me busy and an important person from whom I needed inputs was my Dad. He also took his own time to give me his 'review' … Finally, I put everything together and now the review is up. Reviewing books has become a regular affair but this is different. Reviewing a product and that too, an 'edible and consumable' product Mints – we all have grown consuming mints in various forms and varieties. Weather it was the minty taste or the cooling effect on the tip of the tongue – whether it were small round or rectangular pellets or the very famous mint-with-a-hole – mints have been a part of our growing up. So when BlogAdda offered the product review for a new 'mint' … I decided to give it a shot. It was a dual opportunity – product review and try out a new mint … So that's how I came about to review Ultramintz – a product by ITC under their existing brand...

So I had blogged about my reading plans for 2013-2014 way back in February so thought of just looking back to see if I had veered way off the track !! I have pulled in original content from that post in February and added my comments / status in red text. I had talked about … Short Stories …  Have read them in 2011/2012 and will continue to read them in 2013/2014 Arthur Conan Doyle  – Quite a lot of short stories and none of them has Sherlock Holmes Philip K Dick  – Quite a lot of short stories still to be read even after reading 35 in 2012 Three Investigators Series  – Crime Busters series and Series by Mark Zahn - 23 of them Satyajit Ray  – Professor Shonku short stories; recently discovered 2 collections translated in English   I have been doing all of the above - Reading short stories by several authors as well as those by ACD and PKD besides consistently reading 3I series novellas and short stories. I have just completed one collection of Pr...

The novels (marked bold) and short stories that I have read in the past one month …   1         Novel: The Chimera Vector by Nathan M. Farrugia 2         Henry Shorts: The Dissipated Jeweler by O Henry 3         Hitchcock – Shrouds & Pockets: Where is Harry Beal by John Lutz 4         Hitchcock – Shrouds & Pockets: Deep Waters by John C Boland 5         JA Shorts - Quiver Full of Arrows: Henry's Hiccup by Jeffrey Archer 6         Novel: Inferno by Dan Brown 7         JA Shorts - Quiver Full of Arrows: The Hungarian Professor by Jeffrey Archer 8         PKD Shorts: A Present for Pat by Philip K Dick 9         PKD Shorts: The Hood Maker by Philip K Dick 10     Prof. Shonku Short: The Cochabamban Cave by Satyajit Ray 11     3I Series by MZ - Novella: The Adventure of the Bronze Claw by Mark Zahn 12     Henry Shorts: The Barber Talks by O Henry 13     Henry Shorts: Barber Shop Adventure by O Henry ...

I have always enjoyed TED Talks. They are inspiring; open up your thought process and give you another perspective. They are very interesting and they cover an antire gamut of social, technological and live issues.  Forever imprinted on my mind will be the TED Talks by Joe Smith on how the world can literally halve its paper towel consumption by using only one paper towel after washing hands, rather than using two AND the TED Talk by Pranav Mistry. I have seen many other TED Talks over the years but somehow these two have left an indelible print on my gray matter. Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012 and Indiblogger created a contest of sorts out of it by encouraging people to blog about them. An excellent thought and initiative I would say to take the TED Talks to a wider audience and add more perspective to it. I went through a couple of the talks from Dec 2012 and here are my quick comments on a couple of them.  Bes...

This was way back in 2009. I was in Dubai in those days on a long term project and had planned for a week in India. Coincidentally, there was also a plan for a 2-day Alibaug trip with MBA batch-mates – Nikhil, Shubham and Arijit. We synchronized the Alibaug trip with my India visit and decided to make it for the road trip to Alibaug. Within a few hour of landing at Mumbai airport, I was on my way to Nikhil's residence where Shubham and Arijit were already waiting for me. It had been a long time since I had gone out with friends …. A very very long time … The highlights of the trip were the Alibaug Beach and the Fort, beside the overnight stay at a guest house and the long drive from Mumbai to Alibaug in Nikhil's car and back. All 4 of us had a lot of fun during the entire road trip from Mumbai to Alibaug … reliving memories of our MBA days and catching up on the time since and our career graphs as well as personal lives. It was great to be back together again – a rari...

Book: Band Room Bash Author: Candice Speare No. of Pages: 256 Genre: Fiction Publisher: Heartsong Presents  I had picked up a set of 3 novels by Candice Speare 2 years ago when I visited the Floating Library / Book Store in Dubai – a book exhibition of sorts on a ship.  I had also picked up 2 other sets of 3 novels and a couple of other books.  I read the first novel by Candice Speare earlier this year and picking up the next one now. I am planning to read all the 9 novels in this year itself. Coming to Band Room Bash, our lady protagonist, Trish, found a dead body in a milk-case in the super market in the first novel I read earlier this year (Murder in the Milk Case).  This time around she (keeping up with the reputation) finds a dead body in the school's band room. What makes the whole thing interesting is that: 1. She just can't curb her curiosity and in spite of all the people asking her to NOT  do i...

A few years ago I went on a road trip to Alibaug with 3 of my friends from MBA days. It was 2 days of fulltoo fun and masti. I had blogged about this trip with some pictures (You can check that out here ). It would be fun to do it again … some change of scenery would be a nice break. The pertinent question now is: do we do it alone or do it with our better halves. All 4 of us (Arijit, Hemant, Nikhil & Shubham) are now married and the 'better half' will surely be pissed off if we planned it all by ourselves. So the first thing to think about it is a comfortable car / vehicle which will seat all 8 of us. Any suggestions? An Innova / Xylo would not be comfortable for 8 of us … we will need a bigger one. A comfortable 8-10 seater with good air-conditioning (not that we would need much of it looking at the weather – but then when it rains heavily, u got to roll-up the windows and switch on the AC). I will leave it to the car rental agency to suggest a suitable vehicle. N...