Sunday 31 August 2008

Hangover Biryani

Yesterday I compleated 26 yrs of existance

A reason to celebrate tough

Was planning for a quiet party . But gradually things took a turn for good and a lot of people made it to celebrate this occassion .

Some of us just needed another reason to drink and I needed a reason to drink for "free". As things panned out we ended up drowing ourselves with Ales and Lager . Stayed a bit longer before we hit some more pubs, a great night though i got more people than i asked for and all of them had a great time.

Woke up the next day with a suprising Hang over , Surprising becs i taught i didnt drink that much Er....

Lets rewind >>>>>>>>

About 4 pints and lager and Ale

Corona and for the killer shot 3 JD's with ICE no coke

OR

Its just me getting old !!!!


Now it looks obvious that i did have a lot .

Started cooking Biryani ( chicken and rice ) which turned out to be very tasty.......

YUM


The Mantraa is


Want to cook a good biryani .... Start drinking!!!!

Todays future

Yesterday

I had a look at my profile at orkut

It said

Todays Future : Lots of wishes and letters coming to u !!!!

Well it was my birthday and orkut has a very logical future coding program

Tuesday 26 August 2008

Comedy from the time immemorial

ON a lighter note

These jokes have survived the test of time - And some of it have come so far that they have been translated into our local dialect like joke 5.6. & 8 .

News did spread in those days even without internet,Radio or mobiles without these now the world would come to a stand still


World's ten oldest jokes
The Dave Historical Humour study spent two months trawling the annals of history to produce the first report of its kind into the world's oldest recorded jokes.

1. Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap (1900 BC – 1600 BC Sumerian Proverb Collection 1.12-1.13)


2. How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish (An abridged version first found in 1600 BC on the Westcar Papryus)

3. Three ox drivers from Adab were thirsty: one owned the ox, the other owned the cow and the other owned the wagon's load. The owner of the ox refused to get water because he feared his ox would be eaten by a lion; the owner of the cow refused because he thought his cow might wander off into the desert; the owner of the wagon refused because he feared his load would be stolen. So they all went. In their absence the ox made love to the cow which gave birth to a calf which ate the wagon's load. Problem: Who owns the calf?! (1200 BC)

4. A woman who was blind in one eye has been married to a man for 20 years. When he found another woman he said to her, "I shall divorce you because you are said to be blind in one eye." And she answered him: "Have you just discovered that after 20 years of marriage!?" (Egyptian circa 1100 BC)

5. Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his real name is nobody. When Odysseus instructs his men to attack the Cyclops, the Cyclops shouts: "Help, nobody is attacking me!" No one comes to help. (Homer. The Odyssey 800 BC)

6. Question: What animal walks on four feet in the morning, two at noon and three in the evening? Answer: Man. He goes on all fours as a baby, on two feet as a man and uses a cane in old age (Appears in Oedipus Tyrannus and first performed in 429 BC)

7. Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him (Egyptian, Ptolemaic Period 304 BC – 30 BC)

8. Augustus was touring his Empire and noticed a man in the crowd who bore a striking resemblance to himself. Intrigued he asked: "Was your mother at one time in service at the Palace?" "No your Highness," he replied, "but my father was." (Credited to the Emporer Augustus 63 BC – 29 AD)

9. Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said "I've had a great loss. Just when he had learned not to eat, he died." (Dated to the Philogelos 4th /5th Century AD)

10. Asked by the court barber how he wanted his hair cut, the king replied: "In silence." (Collected in the Philogelos or "Laughter-Lover" the oldest extant jest book and compiled in the 4th/5th Century AD)


Now talking about Copyrites have to legally attach my source : http://uktv.co.uk/dave
But think about original copyrite , we will all have to search for the remains of that person :)

Agreed most of the jokes do not make us laugh but Look at it this way .We have evolved and so has our humour ..


Have a nice week

TA TA

Tuesday 19 August 2008

Yella ok Blog yakke

Just was lost with a huge pile of work and suddenly realised i am getting good hits on my blog. Not too bad ehhh.
Then a taught came to my mind

Thinking back err at my back :)


Y did I ever think about writing this blog, y did i name it as confusedsoul??
Well as some great gentle man said the answer lies within my boy, look inside Hmmmmmm.

No in my case it was one of my good friend(CCB’s) inspiration (more about him later).

Lets go back in time ...............not into the earlier centuries but to March this year.

When i was in South America met Mr. CCB we were very good friends when he was here in Europe shared a flat and some food as well for over a year. I was meeting him in S America after 2.5 yrs almost and he turned out to be a sort of a serious writer and was looking at publishing his first book by the end of this yr. Although he had told me about this it never occurred to me as being so serious .when i was there between all the chit chat at Copacabana he mentioned that he was writing a blog and was getting a lot of responses from some people .

Then the eureka moment flashed like a tube light in my mind ting y shouldn’t i document my thoughts .I am not having such a boring life and it would be nice to share it with other people. Of course being human we all have it in us to document things like graffiti‘s of cavemen or stone carvings in the medieval ages, May be this age it would be BLOGS that’s and started writing after i returned from there. Making my mark on the natural human history.

Looking into the future may be our future generation of archaeologist will try to map us or study the way of life looking at blogs !!!!! Well that’s my future prediction

Bye

Monday 18 August 2008

Travel Scams and warning - Egypt

Pyramida can u beat this view

Hello

I received some request to write up about visa and general travel warnings there , So here it goes

Visa process is quiet straight forward just send in ur tickets, application,fotos and insurance ur PP will be stamped and sent in 2 days by post or if u want it even faster u can go direct to the embassy they have the same day service!!

Warnings
Biggest i found was u cant get out of the city by urself u have to be under military convoy .They take the terrorist threat seriously here and after the red sea bombing and a bus load of tourist shot in the highway u need to be careful.Take it from me ,A country whose main economy runs on tourism and power generation it leaves nothing to chance .So Tourists like u and me being not so

Convoy at 3 AM

important will have to join the daily military convoy and loads of tourist buses across the cities early in the morning .That means getting up at stupid o clock in the morning !!! believe me i got up at 3 to make it to Abu simble !!!!






U cant take fotos in public in Cairo other places like Alexandria are ok.I broke this rule quiet frequently so have some nice videos to show u so just have compact camera on all the times u can take some amazing videos of road crossing in cairo

Scams

Taxis are generally rip off just outside the airport or station (thts subject to how u look and negotiating power) Armani goggles and Samsonites rings $$$ bells in them.So i suggest u walk a couple of mins away from the station and u will find a smartian who will ferry u for a lesser price.

Sunrise near Abu simble

Touts - Just say that u have booked every thing after u find out the price .Then go bak to the cheapest one to start the deal and of course no price for guessing negotiate

I will tell u one funny incident about negotiation in a store in old Cairo .This store was well lit and glittering with superb Persian sales girls who could speak decent English as well.Went into this one with absolutely no intention of buying anything but when one such girl started chatting me up and instincts took over.

It started with me being Indian which was surprising !!! and they said u look Egyptian ( i got that too many times) we both same skin colour and all .I told her see i like this(souvenir) but i can only pay so much since we are students from India and yes the deal was done more or less to the same amount!!!





Mirage this is what it looked like from Abhis camera




Moral :- No matter how flashy the store looks with a fixed price label on it .Ask, U might get a better deal




All in all Superb country, fantastic trip

Monday 4 August 2008

Pharoh Land

Saalam malekum



This blog is dedicated to my not so recent trip to the land of the Pharaoh's.It all started with my friend doing PhD mentioning about it .I had just got a new job so some more VISA power went over to see him for the weekend.


When the discussion about where to spend the 06 Christmas and new yr came up .I suggested some where Europe like France,Italy Spain etc . He said what about Africa anyway flights to Europe during Christmas are expensive.

We quickly did some calculations on a small piece of paper as to how much it would cost and in about 15 mins came to an unamious decision that we were up for Egypt.

NO plans nothing booked not even looking into the visa restrictions and travel warnings I said YES

bOYS WILL BE BOYS Always


Sometimes these random decisions lead u to discover things that u never knew existed and a part of that self realisation happened in this tour as well.

Moving ON 2 weeks after that we booked the flight tickets , Considering it was Christmas we where did get a bargain.On tickets i should tell u this funny episode i should tell u this incident which i hold my hand to my heart and swear it happened.

Since we decided responsibilities of planning the logistics .Abhi was in charge of hunting for dirt cheap ticket and I had to arrange all the accomo and look at the available trains for in country travel.

I gave Abhi a comical travel agents number ( i knew this fellow as some of my friends had booked tickets with him to go bak home according to them he gave them a good deal ) .Apparently he turns out to be a Mallu ( No offence guys) but more so just knows places in UK .And the mallu kolony Dubai

Abhi called him to ask how much a ticket to Cairo cost to which Mr. Travel agent answered Cairo Is it in US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course Abhi was on the floor laughing and never called him again

Flight booked .I started hunting for accomo most of them where to booked calling them which i did using my magical French and English combo.

The Visa process turned out to be very simple go to the embassy based in London just with ur return tickets application and fotos .Visa would be stamped and ur PP returned the same day !!!!

Wah wht an efficient embassy .If only all the embassies where like this :)

I had a last moment scare as my PP didn't arrive until 5 days before departure ( it was in the home office so had to go to the embassy with my heart hopping that they should not ask any more docs . Got the visa no problem .

Now my friend was reading tons and tons of lonely planet guides and all the travel scams that would take place when we were there. Me becs of my Visa scare and graduation business had not done much .Well i will see it was my approach

22 dec left from Midlands and an overnight stay at airport lounge in Zurich .I was happily asleep on the chair but my friend was not able to the same , as myself and another person were snoring hehehehhe

Anyway i wont bore you with all the details but give a fast run of the places and funny incidents that we saw in this land .I would suggest this place to any person who would like to see a different place.

Airport - Cairo

Landed in was a very surprising change Chaos surrounded us We being from the land of a billion people we were no aliens to it

INcident 1: Our Egyptian expert aka my friend, had printout of arabic numbers so that we could take bus no xxx downtown.But the time we deciphered the bus number the bus was gone.!!! then we had to take a taxi and my hardcore bargaining came in handy

Incident 2: we where searching for tickets in the station as all the trains to Aswan were full there was only one option left .To take a first class cabin which was costing $80 .In Egypt that kind of money last longer .A tourist police guy saw all this drama of us running around and took us to a shady alley way .Some under hand dealing where carried out and £80 per head the whole of southern Egypt's tickets,accommodation and food was booked (this price after negotiation)

Incident 3: We were on the train almost ready to sleep when we overheard this conversation between a vegetarian north Indian family and the Caterers

Indian : Do you have food on this train
Waiter: yes , Veg or non Veg
Indian : Relived that they have vegetarian food . Yes what to u give vegetarian
Waiter: Chicken and rice !!!!!
Indian : Puzzled hah then non veg wht to u serve
Waiter: Beef and Rice

Incident 4: Apparently bollywood film Sholay is terribly popular in Egypt virtually everyone knows Dharmender or Big B bollywood in general has a big fan following here

We had shady food , Shaddy Lada taxis and wht not but by in large locals we spoke to were wonderful and country was fascinating .

Top sights in my view
Taxi's i caught right in the middle of the road and started negotiating the fare with cars zipping past .My friend was almost pissing in his pants.
Abu simble
Pyramids
The cruise down the river Nile
Belle dance by some big b~~bs girls

What better way to start New yr than belle dancing and drink in Nile !!!

Let downs
Far too many touts and naggers(it even bothered me in spite of being used to it)
Cant take photographs were ever u want .Broke this rule quiet a few times much to the annoyance of my friend.

One more thing i almost forgot to mention Mostly people mistook me to an egyptian or taught i was a muslim from india.I went to a point were the security guy at the Cruise was talking to me in Arabic and asking me if i was muslim (becs if i was,i am not suppose to be on the cruise where u can Booze) some body had to translate this for me before i understood the whole incident


Well that's it this time

More later

Saturday 2 August 2008

Travel Philisophy


Well i am no big globetrotter but i have done a fair share of travelling i can say .Most of it solo,well i would join a group whom i met along extending my travel mates list .

It was and still is very good fun.
Advantages

U don't have to wait around and wait for ur partner/girl or boyfriend to turn up at a place .


U do what U want .


When i visited a few places i taught silence was my best companion,Me and my travels where at peace with each other.


Well i also met some of the most wonderful friends many of them have offered me a free place to stay if i ever come to their city.


U cannot be shy .Because if u are u have to keep talking to urself so u speak to a lot of girls !!!!!

All in all a good option u might be thinking NO there are flip side to this story as any one.

Disadv

Well the biggest i have found is to click pics .I often carry my tripod with me for this purpose and nag some travellers to click some photos

Some place or should i say some romantic places u need someone to rub shoulders with which is wen u miss them .Seeing a Beautiful sun set by the beach and not having anyone to share it with is sometimes a nagging tough

I as of now have chosen to travel solo ,But some times i do get my friends to tag along .
Constantly these are the questions asked by most of my friends mind and family .

Isn't it frightening to travel alone??
Y should it be ,will ur travel partner make u a super man

What happens if u lose everything and if u are left lost in an unknown city in a desolate ?
In this situation ur mate can may be help or make u more crazy depending on the situation and the person of course .He/she can do absolutely nothing if lose everything u have to go to the police.


There is this other lot who try to figure out y i travel so much or spend so much money on it so for all the sorry souls here is ur retribution

If the Great explorer Marco Polo had listen to u tossers . He would be stuck in a gutter in Venice rotten and the west wouldn't be the place it was supposed to be

Who do u think told all the mortals there is great clay in China or riches of the Far east or still the black gold ( pepper) etc etc.

I am sure all these would be discovered eventually but he only took the risk which payed off.

Or
Lets look at a more recent example who would have imagined a 23 yr old Ernesto guevara de la serna( Che Guevara ) and Alberto Granodo single trip on the La paderosa would change them so much atleast one of them becomes an icon of revolution for years to come.

In Che's own words

"We set out to change the world but in the end we realised that the World around had changed us"

What a wonderful sentence.

Yes i travel to see new things and experience new stuff.But i do realise I am changing , challenging conventional way of thinking and may be becoming broadminded as intellectuals would call it.


Well i will leave u with a good pic clicked from my mobile with i was touring western europe



CIAO

Old friend and false judgements

Today i spoke to not one but a lot of school friends.We where not the best of friends but very good friends at schools , 12 odd years where spent together with some of them and the others i knew even longer. All that time if i look back went by in the blink of an eye.

Everything like

Being a one of the regular student not doing assignments
Thrown out of the class especially Hindi ( its the offical language of India)
Again thrown out of class for not writing ooh i cant remember how many times

I will always remember this tough coming very often from most of my teachers.The typical scene used to be like this

Those of us who were regular in "no assignments" had to stand up on the bench ( home work as it is know in India).After standing up or kneeling down just outside the bench we used to get a typical greatness speech from the teacher.

Teacher: U guys U useless people not doing ur assignments.U will never come up in life U will not survive the competition.How will u get jobs how will u face life Blah blah .........

Alright i don't hold my grudge against any of my teachers.Being my guru a bit of encouragement might have been a bit better,But the funny or sad thing now 12 years after finishing school is this

Those of us scrapped by school or got just average or below average scores or just managed to get to university actually are doing well in life . Not that we are all Vice presidents but when compared to the rank holders in my schoolmates we were in much nicer and better paying jobs.

The conclusion of this blog is not that u should not study well in school in life but please please Kids at school (if u are reading this blog) take it from my personal experience
DONT EVER BY- HEART AND VOMIT IN UR EXAMS.

IT WILL CERTAINLY HELP U GET VERY GOOD SCORES BUT U EVENTUALLY HAVE TO GET OUT OF IT

Well the conclusion is to understand ,be logical and question things, Not just in school but also in life.