Dinner menu, Saturday: Pita, with a Mexican twist.

Ingredients: corn, white onions, green bell peppers, red bell peppers, medium spicy salsa, black beans, shredded cheddar cheese, pita bread and hummus.

• Slightly sautéed the onions, bell peppers and corn
• Heated the pita bread mildly, just until it becomes a little soft
• Placed the pita on a proportionate piece of Aluminium foil, and spread some hummus on one side of the pita
• Laid out a small portion of the sautéed vegetables towards the centre of the pita
• Added a big spoonful of the cooked black beans on top of the vegetables
• Sprinkled a little cheddar on top
• And finally, added a couple of spoons of spicy salsa on top

Now, fold/roll the pita so that it looks like a Taco/Pita…and BITE in!

I personally ate 3 of those! Heaven…  :-)

Barely scary, this movie is outrageously hilarious, even if not intended in some places…. but then maybe it is intended and I actually got the joke… that is besides the point.

This movie reminded me of Shaun of the Dead.. starring Simon Pegg… boy! that was a gut buster.

Finally a different zombie movie, which is not necessarily about gore… in fact for the most part it is not… of course there are a couple scenes that involve some scattered flesh, and a few with blood spatters and such… but then, after all, it is a zombie movie.

Woody Harrelson is his usual silly self.. and the other skinny dude is just awesome!

I have been going to Gatlinburg atleast once a year on average, and only this year did I actually get the time to stroll through downtown leisurely and explore all the shops around there.

Before even going there we looked up some must-see places, and among the list was the Donut Friar. This is run by a charming old lady, who knows everything there is to know about donuts (or is it doughnuts?)

If you like Crispy Creme, or better yet Dunkin, just imagine the perfect doughnut melting in your mouth as soon as the piece hits the space between your palette and tongue.

mmmmmmmmmmm…. heaven! 

So next time, if you are driving by or visiting Gatlinburg, check out this little shop… It is located inside a shopping arcade called “The Village“.  Actually even if you are not a big fan of doughnuts, just take a stroll through The Village, for the construction resembles medieval European style buildings. (brick walkways, conical domes for buildings and such..)

To me, this movie has two separate tracks… one about the Aghoris and another about the beggar mafia… and these tracks are somehow made to meet towards the movie’s final moments. (Reminds me of the times when I used to stretch one of the lines disregarding the instructions - while in Geometry class - to make it meet one of the others thereby completing some drawing/diagram that was due.)

What was the point of Arya building up this persona for this movie, when all he did was sit on his head with his butt in the air a couple times? I do not understand. I am hoping Bala might have…or atleast Arya…

Most of whom I spoke with about this movie, prior to watching it, warned me against watching it because of the grotesque manner in which the beggar mafia is exposed. However, the movie does not show things which are too different than what I have seen day in and day out growing up in a city like Madras. Of course, I did not surmise that the “disabled” kids begging on the streets may have actually been just another hungry stomach waiting to fed… and someone might have used this vulnerability to make a racket out of it. So definitely some new insights, albeit being showcased a little differently in Slumdog Millionaire, already.  (To me it seemed like vada naattula mattum dhan varumaya, tamizh naatileyum irukku…adha kaamikkalam… sort of ideology).

Anyway the movie was different compared to all the jinguchakka films, with busty and rotund heroines trying to seduce (hopelessly, of course) heroes suffering from post steroid bulge syndrome.

Kamal’s latest movie is certainly no match for A Wednesday… But then, perhaps I wouldn’t be saying this, had I not watched the Hindi movie.

The major things that stood out in this tamil movie were the fact that Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher were leagues ahead in their performances. Jimmy Shergill was way better and so was the other Inspector assisting Jimmy in the transfer.  The guy who played Arif looked a little like he was doing a Tantex advertisement.. I guess he is good looking and pulls off the tough cop style to an extent, but not as nonchalantly as Jimmy did.

Lakshmi was a total waste… her character seemed like one of those mother-in-law characters from some of the mega serials of today. She must perhaps write a book titled “

Kamal is his usual… playing full center stage with his annoying use of a strongly non-Indian English accent. (rolling r’s especially).. which I felt was completely unncessary.. At the very beginning of his affected verbal abuse of Mohanlal’s character, he starts explaining about C4… like anybody watching the movie would care to know… from the movie that is.

The toilet shown in the police station looked like a 3 star toilet… who are they kidding? How is this a portrayal of reality?

Anyway…The movie was alright, but sometimes it tries to take itself too seriously, and that is a little annoying, to say the least… and, Shruthi Hassan’s music is very pedestrian.

…Is apparently quite the nightmare.. So much for all the hype surrounding it’s entry into the market and rave reviews from a lot of techie-nerds.

I was reading up about getting my laptop (Sony VAIO VGN-FZ 4000) moved over to W7, and one of the first steps in doing this is to run a “Windows upgrade advisor”… the results showed that my video card will not be compatible. The Sony support site does not have any drivers listed for my laptop’s model.

My elation that the NVIDIA website had the drivers listed for the NVIDIA geForce 8400m GT, was short lived as there is a short list of laptops that this updated W7 driver does not support…and surprise! Sony laptops are among the unsupported list.

So I went through a heck of a lot of forums on Microsoft’s site, google groups, sevenforums, etc.. and the only hope for now, is to download a modded driver from one of those whatchammacallit websites, and hope it works.

Some of the symptoms of upgrading to W7 on a Sony Laptop are as follows:

• Graphics card is not recognized by the OS as a Full-HD 1080p, but a standard VGA.
• Audio out port does not work…so no sound via headphones or speakers. The on-board speakers seem to work.
• HDMI does not work as intended.
• And probably, quite a lot more.

Note: The above information was gathered from reading a lot of the above mentioned forums and websites and not a result of my own crazy experiments at home. I am yet to brave the new OS.

Apparently SONY and other companies, customize the GPUs while assembling/manufacturing their “custom made” laptops. This has created the whole situation around not having a smooth upgrade to the next available new OS. Also SONY’s online support tells me that my laptop is not eligible for a W7 upgrade, and the irony of it is that the computer is barely more than a year old.

As a result of all the “good word” around, I have decided to wait to upgrade and stay on Vista Home Premium, till such time.

After much deliberation the only shot worth posting from the entire collection of garbage after my visit to the Blue Ridge ..currently set this as the wallpaper at home and at work. So much for all the aniticipation I built for myself to spend a nice day with beautiful sunlight for me to shoot the colours in the Blue Ridge Parkway. sigh.

Travesty… I was hoping to get some great shots of the beautiful and rich fall foliage… But I was presented with possibly the most unfavourable conditions… Overcast skies, which grew darker by the hour… gusty winds, which made almost all shots blurry….so I have nothing to show how beautiful Blue Ride actually is/was.  sigh.

Atleast I witnessed it in first person instead of sitting at home and seeing it on someone else’s Flickr page. That, I am happy about…and it was COLD up there!

US 321, is perhaps one of the best roads I have ever driven on… and I-40 is perhaps one of the worst concrete highways ever. So if you ever plan on driving on I-40, see if you can atleast drive a little stretch of your trip on 321, wherever possible. 40 was unbelievably noisy and bumpy… I could hear and feel every single bump on the road, especially at places where the several concrete sections were joined to one another. It was riding a bullock cart or a horse carriage. Terrible road!

In all, this weekend was perhaps one of the very few times when I actually wanted the Sun to shine bright on the slopes. Alas, my fall colour fantasy has been shattered this year.

I was walking to Starbucks this morning as I didn’t eat breakfast at home… As I was getting there, the aroma of hot sambar/pitlai, hot from the stove filled my nostrils… don’t know from where… and I was instantly transported to the little hotels of kumbakonam…. where a hot breakfast of  idli/vada/pongal, with sambar and thenga chutney is served on a banana leaf.

Gosh! What I wouldn’t give for that… now.

Got a chance to take some good pictures this weekend at Lazy Five Ranch, near Mooresville, North Carolina. We had no idea that the trip was going to blow our minds the way it did. Essentially, we had to drive through a winding road which took us all through the ranch. Right from the entrance to exit, there are animals all over the place, that one can actually interact with. Also you can get a small pail of some granulated animal/bird feed, at the entrance to the ranch for $3. The animals actually come to your car, and you can feed them through the window, by just holding out the little pail. Most animals are patient eaters… I say most, because the Ostriches were a different experience altogether. I didn’t feed them, as I was busy clicking away pretty much everything I could from within the confines of my car.  At one point a longhorn bull was actually chasing us at a modest speed, which was a little scary, to say the least.

My best memory of this ranch would have to be the little white piggy… He (I think), was grazing when we found him, but as soon as our car stopped by him, he stopped in his tracks, looked up at us, and started wagging his little tail… That was a pleasant surprise! So far, I have only seen dogs and elephants acknowledging the presence of humans, by wagging their tails, dancing around, etc… but the little piggy totally won me over, so much so that I actually wanted to pet him and cuddle with the chubby fella.

Overall, it was one helluva fulfulling experience as far as seeing these animals up close, and taking some pretty good shots.

<SELF PLUG> I have linked to some of them below..Click on the picture to go the Flickr page for more photos.<SELF PLUG>