Happy Diwali everyone!

Woooohoooo can’t wait for the Shark’s regular season to get underway next week!! Bought a “Shark Pack” tickets to ten games. Figured it would be cheaper then getting tickets to individual games…especially with ticketmasters “convenience” fee  which can add 10-20% to the price of the tickets….oh plus they charge you $2 to print your tickets…wait let me see if I understand this correctly…Ticketmaster is charging me to print tickets with my printer, my ink, my electricity, my paper? WTH? So yeah said to hell with ticketmaster….

Things I’m looking forward to this season:

1. New coach: Since the new Coach used to be Detroit’s assistant coach I’m hoping he injects some toughness into the Sharks. Yeah

2. NABBY!!!: Are an awesome season last year, expect more of the same awesome goal tending this year!

3. Black jersey: The Shark’s Black jersey will be back this season. Sharks had 3 jersey’s prior to last season…Teal jersey for home games…White for away games..and a black one that they wore from time to time. LOVED the black jersey..but last year when they switched to Reebok jersey’s all teams dropped their third jerseys for the season. Reebok’s reason was something along the lines that they didnt have time to create the 3rd jerseys for all the teams..but I bet the REAL reason is to increase sales this season - if they offered 3 jerseys last season, most people might have only bought 1 out of the 3..whichever looks the coolest in their opinon…but since they offered only 2 jerseys last season, a fan would have gone out and bought one..and then this season might find the 3rd jersey better looking then the one from the previous season..and end up with 2 new jerseys - this isn’t really a bad assumption based on opinons of fans on forums…I know a lot of shark fans bought a teal jersey last season even though they really wanted a black one. I fall into that catagory haha.

4. Taking pics with zoom lens. I don’t think the 40-150mm will be enough though…even with Olympus’s 2x lens multiplication factor…might need to get a 70-300mm…Trideep you didn’t tell me photography was gonna get this expensive!

5. Watching the sharks kick butt and make it past the 2nd round of the playoffs and bring home the Stanley cup!

Okie enough for now…there’ll be more posts on the Sharks throughout the season. Here are the games I’ll be attending (not counting the playoffs )

Tue. Oct. 14 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets
Tue. Oct. 28 vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
Tue. Nov. 4 vs. Minnesota Wild
Sat. Nov. 22 vs. Washington Capitals
Sat. Dec. 6 vs. Edmonton Oilers
Thu. Jan. 15 vs. Calgary Flames
Thu. Jan. 29 vs. Phoenix Coyotes
Thu. Feb. 19 vs. Los Angeles Kings
Thu. Mar. 19 vs. Nashville Predators
Sat. Apr. 4 vs. Anaheim Ducks

(Took this pic at a Sharks game last year…fight! fight! fight!)

(10:31:14 AM) s(name_withheld): why dont u blog about pinky promises
(10:31:20 AM) shiva nair: i should!
(10:31:30 AM) shiva nair: and i should make my blog pink!
(10:31:46 AM) shiva nair: been lazy lately..havent been blogging
(10:32:12 AM) s(name_withheld): oh yea
(10:32:14 AM) s(name_withheld): turn it pink
(10:32:23 AM) s(name_withheld): everyone will think that u are “happy”
(10:33:35 AM) shiva nair: but i am happy….not gay..but happy happy

UPDATE: Geek Dreams is back to its normal colors, but if you wanna check out the pink theme that was up for a day click on the image below

Saw a crazy accident today…so this mini van rans a red light..hits a accord… and then the mini van swerves into the opposite lane and then the driver tries to steer it back into the correct lane..and ends up hitting the curb causing two of his wheels to go off the ground and his van goes a certain distance with two wheels and then finally lands back on all 4 wheels. We stopped since we were witnesses….the guy in the accord was shaking…in shock..but thankfully no one was injured..his first accident so was asking us what he should do etc…in the meantime my buddy Fuzzy (hey that rhymes!) called the cops..but before he gives the location, the cops are already there! Was impressed by the quick response time..and by quick I mean less then a 1min and a half! The driver of the mini van was early 40s or so with a SIX year old kid in the van! and 2 other passengers! Thats so CRAZY! They should have died! It was so close to flipping over.

Oh and this happened on the intersection of El Camino and Mary in Sunnyvale…same spot where a lady ran a red light and hit my car in februrary of this year! That intersection is cursed I tell you!

(Maroon car is mine. Car on the right is the accord that got hit. Sunnyvale police car in the background and cop in the foreground is writing down Faraaz’s account of the accident)

Seconds after I published this post, the driver of the accord emailed us to thank us:

“Hi Shiva and Faraaz,

Thank you so much for your amazing help tonight. I truly appreciated it. 

I was very fortunate that you guys kindly called to the police and explained the accident. Without your evidence, it would have been a difficult situation to me. I hope things will soon be clarified.

Thanks again for your kindness. I will keep you updated if anything happens.

Best regards,

(name withheld)”

Microsoft is prepping to insert its own version of the Apple Genius, dubbed Microsoft Gurus, in stores like Best Buy and Circuit City, but unlike the Genuis Bar staff, Microsoft’s pros will only help with pre-sale questions, according to Yahoo! Finance.

Tom Pilla, Microsoft’s general manager of corporate communications, isn’t comparing the Microsoft Gurus to the Apple Genius bar team. “Think of that as borrowing a page from Nordstrom with that retail customer experience,” he said.

The Gurus will be placed in stores to help potential customers select Microsoft solutions and to offer pre-sale support. They will not, however, be available for post-sale support, unlike the Genius Bar staff, potentially limiting their usefulness to new Microsoft customers.

The Microsoft Guru program is part of a US$300 million campaign the Redmond-based company has launched in an effort to improve its image. The company recently launched a new TV ad series with Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld as part of its image revamp, too.

Source

Sweeeeeet..now I can go bug these “Gurus” with questions like “Why is vista a huge piece of sh*t?” , “Why the f*** did some features/utilities from XP get replaced by less efficient utilities in Vista?”….

Exciting week for geeks everywhere. Net is buzzing with rumors of what Apple might be releasing next tuesday. I was hoping it would be a redesigned macbook pro, but looks like it’ll be updated ipods. In the midst of all that google announced that it was going to release a web browser!! Wooohoooo! Its available here and you can read the announcement on the official google blog. Been using it since yesterday and it is fast when it comes to rendering pages, has a sexy minimalist design, and I love how flexible the tabs are. Check it out for yourself.

Also out is version 3 of Picasa. Briefly used it today to sync some albums. Besides the sharing/sync features I love the new picture viewer..does a much better job then the default windows viewer. Download Picasa 3 Beta from here and read the announcement on official google blog here.

Back blogging after a brief hiatus..after the olympics finished needed to catch up on sleep that I missed out while trying to stay up late to caught all the events Now that the olympics are over theres not much to watch on tv….200+ channels and nothing good is ever on :(…ooo except for x-files reruns on TNT at 11pm! Reminds me of the days back in primary school when I used to stay up late trying to catch an episode on a school night…good times

Went camping last weekend with and it was a blast. Camp ground was located minutes away from the heart of Point Reyes National Seashore. Camp was set up on saturday and since daylight was quickly fading all we had time for was dinner…not gonna complain about that :) 

Sunday morning woke up early…to the sound of crows…and a crying baby from a nearby tent but that was alright since years of college have made me pretty used to getting no more then 5 hours of sleep. After breakfast drove out to the lighthouse. Beautiful scenery all around all around.

The steps leading down to the lighthouse didn’t look too bad intially…so I didn’t pay too much attention to the sign stating that the climb was equivalent to a 30 story building. Walk down was a piece of cake…but on the way up….all I’m gonna say is that I’m glad I’ve been hitting the gym lately haha..otherwise I’d be in a bit of trouble….I wouldn’t say that the climb was equivalent to a 30 story building though…maybe a 15 story building.

On the way back to the camp, we stopped by an oyster farm…and that brings up the most important part of the weekend…THE FOOD!

WOW..just wow…we had some kick ass chefs in our group who conjured up amazing kabobs, chicken and lamb dishes…and there was lots and lots of my fav…bacon haha

And for the health conscious….veggies wrapped in bacon! (the only way veggies should be eaten!)..

..and fresh oysters from the oyster farm!

A bunch of us also got to see a baby rattle snake on a hike. Turns out that baby rattle snakes are deadlier then full grown ones. According to Wikipedia:

Rattlesnakes are born with fully functioning fangs capable of injecting venom and can regulate the amount of venom they inject when biting. Generally they deliver a full dose of venom to their prey, but may deliver less venom or none at all when biting defensively. A frightened or injured snake may not exercise such control. Young snakes are to be considered more dangerous, as they have less control over the amount of venom they inject. A young rattlesnake will often simply inject all its venom, which is a deadly amount.

Well this one didn’t do much…just chilled in the middle of the path for a bit and once it got tired of all the rockstar-ish attention it was getting decided to just slither away into the grass. Within a blink of an eye you couldn’t distinguish the rattlesnake from the grass. Would suck to run into one of these accidently.

No more snakes on our hike, but lots of tree hugger eye candy

Returned on monday and hit the gym right away…needed to burn off all that yummy-ness from the trip. 

Oooo those are some big a** flames!

29 years ago a bunch of garlic lovers decided to start a festival to share garlic enhanced recipes with visitors from across the globe…now in its 30th year it attracts huge crowds and sends up a garlicky aroma all around the city. Besides having food stalls, theres also garlic inspired artwork (paintings..hats shaped in the form of a garlic bulb..etc), rides for the kids, live music..and the famous pyro chefs(like the ones in the pic above). Even though I’ve been in the area for the last 8 years I never bothered to check it out until this weekend with Andy and Christy.

I heard that theres a huge variety of food there, but my mission was to try out the following:

1. Garlic Ice Cream
2. Kangaroo meat
3. Alligator meat

The last two items don’t have garlic in em, but theres a vendor that sets up a stall every year with those items. Usually carries snake meat as well, but that was a no show this year. Took a while to find the items above due to the large number of vendors. Heres some pics to show what kind of stalls were present:

Deep fried garlic….hmm….I’ll pass.

Veggies? No thanks

Oooooo garlic ice cream! The perfect way to kill vampires…coz who refuses ice cream?

While I was looking for the two stalls pictured above and waiting for Andy and em to arrive I tried the garlic chicken stir-fry at one of the other booths…it was pretty good. Eventually came across the ice cream stall. Turns out that the garlic ice cream comes in a vanilla, pistachio, chocolate varieties ..what the hell…you mean its not made of pure garlic? Anyway I ordered the vanilla since the vanilla garlic flavor is the original flavor that kicked off this garlic ice cream craze. It did taste of garlic, but no where as overpowering as I expected it to taste!

Next up the gator tails! It came fried and on a stick. It tasted…like paper actually. If it wasn’t for the batter it was fried in it wouldn’t have had a taste at all. Hmm…not impressed

Ok Kangaroo time! This was prepared in some sort of stew and also came on a stick…hmm tasier then the gator tail…but really tough. Took me a good 15 mins or a lil longer to chew 5 pieces. Once again not really impressed, but glad I tried everything on my list.

Andy and Christy finally arrived during my kangroo trial and after that we spent about half an hour looking for others..checked out a few stalls…but for the most part just chilled (or tried to) in the shade. The 93 degree F heat (33 degrees C) was intolerable to the point where the only thing on my mind was getting out of there and to the nearest thing with an AC.

Overall the garlic festival wasn’t all that…besides the garlic ice cream and the awesome pyro chefs there was nothing awesome that I’d came back for next year.

4 comments

Just got back from dropping a friend at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) airport and as I was exiting the airport parking lot, that now familiar sick feeling in my stomach came back. Over the years most of the time when theres a need to go to SFO its because someone is leaving…family…friends..and now I even dread driving past the airport on 101..I just associate that place with the sadness felt after watching someone close walk through the security checkpoint and out of sight…and that feeling is amplified whenever I’ve exciting the parking lot..memories of previous visits to the airport come flooding back and I feel sick. The entire structure is a memento of those who are not here in California.

Was awesome to see my buddy after almost 8 years….its weird how even though we haven’t really kept in touch that much over the years it didn’t seem that way…felt like it was just yesterday that we were in high school. People change over time, but I guess good friendships always remain the same.

And that puts a smile on my face

Stories like these bring a smile to my heart and a tear to my eye. There’s just not enough of these that get heard/read so posting it here. Thanks to SL for bringing it to my attention.

“This year’s college graduates owe their success to many factors, from hectoring parents to cherished remedies for hangovers. But one of the most remarkable of the new graduates, Beatrice Biira, credits something utterly improbable: a goat.

“I am one of the luckiest girls in the world,” Beatrice declared at her graduation party after earning her bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College. Indeed, and it’s appropriate that the goat that changed her life was named Luck.

Beatrice’s story helps address two of the most commonly asked questions about foreign assistance: “Does aid work?” and “What can I do?” …….” Click here for the complete story

Can’t wait to check out in detail  GlobalGiving one of the sites mentioned in the article that make stories such as this one come true. They seem to have a lot of active projects going on around the world that you and I can lend a helping hand to by donating. That $5 starbucks latte..that $250 Wii..that $199 iphone…might put a smile on our face and give us temporary satisfaction..until the next new thing comes out..but the same $$ can change lives!  Be sure to check it out!

Title says its all….long day at work.

Looking forward to this Sunday’s OneRepublic concert at the Filmore. Found someone who wants to go! Too bad SL isn’t around because shes the only other local (no longer) OneRepublic fan I know. Most people don’t know who OneRepublic is are until I ask them if they’ve heard the song “apologize”..and even then they think it’s a Timberland song! Pooey!

No thats not how much I was charged on my last cell bill, but thats how much I would have paid if I didn’t have an unlimited data plan! Was going over my bill a few minutes ago when I noticed that I used 163,742kb (163MB) of data in the last month and was wondering how much I would have paid had I not had a unlimited plan. At&t charges $0.01 per kb if you don’t have a data plan..so would have amounted to a huge-omus $1637.42 bill! Thank god for my $20/month data plan!

Note: I should add that a non-iphone user would prolly not get anywhere close to this amount of usage even if they used their cellphones as much as I do because the iphone loads regular webpages and not cellphone optimized pages and as a result more data is transmitted to the phone.

Its thursday…4th of July weekend almost at the door..still no plans set in stone..guess it might just be me and the ps3.

Currently researching DSLR cameras…figured its time to get a REAL camera to sumplement my point and shoot (Canon SD750). Was leaning towards the Olympus E-510 with some advice from Deep, but after talking to SL this morning the Nikon D60 looks attractive..but pricey..decisions decisions!

Was supposed to go camping this coming long weekend, but fires in the Big Sur area have been spreading over the last two weeks, resulting in more road closures and more residents of the area being evacuated. Camp site is located a few miles down the road from the fires..so its a no go. Hmm what else can we get up to this long weekend? Don’t wanna sit around at home but at the same time don’t wanna drive too far thanks to high gas prices. What’s a geek to do?

A good friend, Sharky, will be heading to Japan for 2.5 years this september. I’m JEALOUS thinking of all the FREAKING AWESOME OUT OF THIS WORLD ARGHHH ramen she’ll have easy access to =0(

Think fedex/DHL ships food? How long until ramen goes bad? Hmm….time to start saving for a trip to Japan.

Heard this on a talk show yesterday morning and its hilarious and embarrassing at the same time!

video here

Q. “Why can’t a fifth of Americans find the United States on a map?”

A. “I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and I believe that our education like such as south Africa and the Iraq and everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the US should help the US or should help south Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future.”

Hmm..so Iraq and south africa are part of the US now? Maybe thats why they can’t find the US on the map…they’re looking at the WRONG part of the globe!!! Someone should arrest her Geography and English teachers and such as and such as…

Time to finally cut the military budget and spend more on education? such as…such as..

Currently busy with projects and upcoming finals so it’ll be a while before this is up and running 100%

- shiva

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