Vijay Basrur

New clothes for my blog

So I decided to get some new clothes for the blog. I love the variety of themes available for WordPress. Infact the whole WordPress ecosystem makes blogging a treat.

I bumped into Blog Oh Blog a few weeks back and I returned there yesterday to look around. I spotted the Statement theme and loved it. So I adapted to the theme yesterday. I still have some bells & whistles to go. But those will come over time. I liked the clean layout and the 2 sidebars which allow for a lot of external content.

Till the time I decide to get some more new clothes, Statement it is.

Social Networking Time Drain

I was reading David Pogue’s Twittering Tips for Beginners and was quite amsued by this quote of his

I’ll admit that, for the longest time, I was exasperated by the Twitter hype. Like the world needs ANOTHER ego-massaging, social-networking time drain? Between e-mail and blogs and Web sites and Facebook and chat and text messages, who on earth has the bandwidth to keep interrupting the day to visit a Web site and type in, “I’m now having lunch”? And to read the same stuff being broadcast by a hundred other people?

And sometimes I feel it is so true..some of these have become time drains, haven’t they? Unless you are disciplined about it you can go through an entire day twittering, facebooking, orkuting and other such (blogging for ex ).

Time to get back to work!

A new year

So another year comes to an end and a new one begins. Its always so exciting at this point in time. The memories of the year gone by are still so fresh (time does move fast) and the plans for the year ahead are still buzzing.

The highlights of the year gone by were my job change (after nearly 7 years), parenthood (we were blessed with a baby girl in May who continues to infuse so much happiness every day) and our new car (after 5 years) Ironically the job change & our baby came nearly around the same time and it turned out to be the most stressed out time of the year. But thankfully I sailed through with my mother-in-law being of great help during that time. Both, the new job and our baby girl, are doing well and I am enjoying both quite a bit.

Getting back to a startup has been a refreshing change. The joy of creating something and seeing it grow is unmatched. Here’s to hoping that 2009 turns out to be great for Quikr

The year ahead has quite a few things in store from a personal viewpoint. Our daughter will turn 1 this year. We are hoping to be closely involved with my Mom’s school project at Igatpuri for the Puntayma Prabhakar Sharma Seva Mandal. If you would like to contribute do write in to me. Our nephew, Shreyas, who is the apple of our eyes, takes his first steps into formal schooling and it will be a joy to see him grow up. We are hoping for a full family outing this year, even if it is a weekend. And maybe, just maybe an international holiday, if things go well planned.

So much for plans. As for resolutions, there are a few since I am good at breaking them. But I am hoping to stick to the ones that I have lined up. Now that’s the first resolution I need to stick to.

Have a safe year!

Diwali – A festival of lights (and sweets)

Diwali is surely a festival of lights. Crackers & fireworks are an integral part of Diwali too. But as the years have gone by the fireworks are getting more polluting and not to mention horribly expensive. Sweets are also integral to Diwali, like any festival.

This year we’ve had a bumper offering of sweets at home and we are constantly swaying from being guilty and being greedy. This year’s spread includes

1- Sutarpheni (This has been a Diwali tradition for as long as I can remember. And it has to be brought from D Damodar at Dadar TT, no other will do)
2- Mysorepak (Though the best is available at Shree Krishna Sweets, mysorepak from mani’s at Matunga also pretty good. The secret is in the dollops of ghee used)
3- Kaju Katli (The eternal favourite)
4- Puran Poli (This is the quintessential Marathi savoury which goes very well with ghee)
5- Gulab Jamun (My uncle got us a dozen from Sweet Bengal and they are heavenly)
6- Halvason (This is a sweet from Gujarat. Snehal’s aunt, who was visiting, got it from Anand)
7- Mande (Mom made this karwari sweet for the first time which tasted pretty good)
8- Rava Ladoo (Ladoos made from Rava & Sugar. Homemade and Mommade)
9- Boondi Ladoo (Ladoos made from fried boondi soaked in sugar syrup. Homemade and wifemade. Pretty good. Tastes best when heated a little bit)
10- Karanji (The GSB variant with dessicated coconut, poppy seeds & powdered sugar filling. Homemade, Wifemade, Yummy!)

Add to this some inflow of various chocolates and our stomachs are groaning with the decadence of sugar, ghee and all such.

An exercise routine has to soon start next week to loose all that has been gained.

Happy Diwali!

Fight inflation, get a membership at Metro cash and carry

I managed to check out Metro Cash and Carry last weekend. I was impressed by the savings it offers but was surprised by the minimum purchase you have to make each time. Well after all it is not for the end consumers like you and me.

The cash and carry concept is pretty simple. You come, purchase in bulk, pay in cash and then carry it out. No free bags here! The minimum purchase value should be 1000 bucks. Some of the stuff needs to bought in bulk. Ex: Biscuits can be picked only in packs of 5. So you may end up with more biscuits than you want unless you plan to sell them to someone else.

To simply put, it is a wholesaler for a retailer. But one look at the prices and it makes you wonder how much “margins” the middle man makes. A Tropicana juice carton costs 75 bucks in any shop. At Metro it sells for 59 bucks leaving the retailer to make nearly 15 bucks (20%) on a 75 bucks item. That’s whopping! I picked up Diapers (what else!) and saved 20% again. Pampers pack of 28 which retails for 275 is available for 225. I was happy

While Metro may be a good thing for retailers since it probably puts any other middlemen out of the value chain, it is no saving grace for consumers who shop elsewhere. Retailers buying from Metro are not goig to sell you stuff for any cheaper. Even a Hyper mart such as Shoprite offers Tropicana for 73 bucks, I think.  This whole distribution seems to be a controlled “cartel like” business value chain allowing retailers to make decent profits squeezing the last bit from the consumer.

So if you live on the Central side (since Metro is located at Bhandup, they have one opening at Borivili in about an years time) you should network with someone who has a Metro card and go get your monthly shopping from Metro.

Parent’s day out

Last night we tried something for the first time. Sneaked out for a movie while the baby was asleep. We watched Rock On and rushed back as soon as the movie wrapped up. Mansi woke up 15 mins before we entered but she was quite manageable.

I liked the movie. Infact I think the music was amazing considering its a shift from the usual hindi movie sound tracks. Lyrically I thought all the songs were pretty average but the final output covered these flaws. The closing song is really cool and draws from the Floydish sets (from Pulse) and is the longest song in the entire soundtrack but surely is a winner.

This is the first time we watched a movie worried about something else. We were hoping Mansi doesn’t wake up bawling and hungry for milk and she helped us watch the movie in peace by sleeping like a baby!

Screw ups

My Provident Fund settlement seems to have been screwed up. I am praying someone unscrews it. The moolah from the PF is in transit for the past 21 days. I got a copy of the letter whereas my bank has still not received the original along with the cheque.

I am mighty impressed with the PF guys for processing my settlement without a flaw but the last mile seems to be taking more time than required making me wonder who is to be blamed.

But I hope this issue gets resolved without any sort of “jugaad”