Pet mein thandak aahhh......

I guess the picture to the left says a lot about this post. But then again the title doesnt match...but then maybe it does. Pet mein thandak ka matlab....soda. Yep just guzzled a masala soda, indian style. Ofcourse a goti-wali soda would have been a dream come true, but that will have to wait for now.

This is how it all started, yesterday night I wanted to eat some good indian food. So along with Arjun and Vishal, I drove to "Golden Harvest" a desi restaurant. But to our bad luck (vishal jo saath mein tha, bro if you are reading this am just kidding) the restaurant was not only closed but it was shutdown (read out of business). So the next option was to go to "Sita" but with our luck, when we reached there it was closed too. In fact this place is open only until 9:00pm. Now what kind of people are done eating their dinner by 9:00? So we ended up at UNO's and while munching on a pizza imagined it to taste like naan and paneer tikka masala.

But that was yesterday. To make up for the void of indian food in my stomach, today we ate our lunch at "Harini", which was pretty ok. Lekin kitna bhi kha lo kam pad hi jaata hai (the original dialogue is "Pyaar kitna bhi karo kum pad hi jaata hai"). So this is how it all began, I got into my car to drive back home and it was raining all along. Now we all know what this kind of an atmosphere does to people. Back in India I would have stopped by a chai ka thela and would have ordered a cutting along with some bhaji. That wouldn't be the case here, not in Morrisville atleast. So I figured lets go home make tea and some bhaji. Lekin akele khane mein kya maaza. So I called up Shailesh and told him to get vish and arjun along. Its after I hung up that it struck me, "kyon na batate wade banaye jaaye?"

With that noble thought in mind I pulled into the parking lot of Giants (a local supermarket) and bought some chillies and corriander. Got home and put in some potatoes to boil, chopped chillies, garlic, ginger, corriander etc., and started cooking. An hour later we had the wada's ready (shailesh fried them - I wouldnt want to take his credit). Vishal was making us tea, but then again with his luck ;) saala doodh hi fat gaya...lol. So here we were eating homemade wada pav in USA with fate hue doodh ki chai (which was good, due to the hot chillies we never actally felt the difference). And by the time I realised that I was on a diet (just kidding), I had already stuffed myself with 31/2 wada pav.

That was at around 9:00pm today. At the same time yesterday were searching for indian food with no luck. Isnt it funny? Atleast I think it is. By 11:00 I was still stuffed so we decided to go out and get some club soda. I guess what followed you can figure out yourself.

Ready Aim Fire

Yeah this is eaxtly what the experience was like. The experience of holding a real stainless steel gun in my hands. The Smith & Wesson’s 9mm M&P Semi-Auto Pistol.

I had been wanting to go to a local gun range (with the same name as this post) and fire a couple of rounds of real bullets. After being lazy for almost the entire summer I finally got to it. Today Pratik and I we both drove down to the gun range on Ellwood road.

Being a first timer we listened carefully to all the instructions the owner gave us. He showed us how to load the bullets into the magazine, how to insert the magazine into the pistol and how to lock it secure. Next came the correct posture to stand in, how to hold the gun, aim it and shoot!

We were given two guns and two different shooting lanes, and ofcourse 50rounds of ammo. Before we entered the range we had to put on a pair of standard industry earmuffs. The entrance to the range was double doored to prevent the noise from getting out. The moment we opened the second door I could hear the sound of bullets firing, and no sir it didnt sound like crackers at all. The sound is so loud and so real that you cant mistake it for anything else.

Once we got to our lanes we put up our target charts on the pulley and placed it at about 7yards, that what the owner had told us to start with. Loading bullets into the magazine was the difficult part, it looked easy when the owner showed it to us, but I really had a tough time loading them in, especially the 9th and the 10th bullet.

Firing the first couple of rounds was really fun and it was more or less hitting the target where I wanted to. So with my confidence up a notch I pushed the target at 15 yards. Now as I started shooting I wasnt even sure if I was hitting the target at all. It wasnt as easy as it all seemed.
Finally after 50 rounds I looked at the target board and it seemed that atleast 28 of my bullets found their way onto the target. Not bad afterall.

Drive to the range 5 dollars, Gun rental 20 dollars, 50 rounds of ammo 25 dollars, hitting 28 bullets at the target priceless.....

Projekt Revolution

Oh...so you think its either a typo or I need to really use a dictionary.....nah..
Projekt Rev is a tour that was started by LP (Linkin Park) to promote the new age music, the fusion of rock, techno, hip-hop, etc. And this time I had the opportunity to watch it live at the Camden Waterfront in August. Yeah I know, I need to do some catch up on bloggin. But the thing is that when I get a new subject/inspiration/experience to blog about I dont have my laptop around. Even if I would have I think I am too lazy to type it thru. Moreover, its difficult to type my ideas as fast as the come to me. So I am planning to go the podcast way, but then again there is a certain freedom that a reader gets in reading a blog that he doesn't in listening to a podcast. But anyways I am willing to give it a try, soon...

Coming back to the Proj Rev, I have been a big fan of LP for a long time now, I listen to their music when I am driving, running or working out. For that matter I listen to them whenever I feel like.

Now before I continue this post there is another thing that crossed my mind, I have noticed that I dont have enough patience to ever complete a post and most of the times end them abruptly, which you would know if you have read a couple of my posts. But I guess patience is a virtue that I never had; no regrets.

See this is exactly what I was talking about earlier, there are too many ideas crossing my mind and I just can keep it on one topic to complete the post, without running through some others.

Anywas the concert was on Aug 24 or was it 25th....hmm...doesnt matter; it was a saturday I remember that. We entered the auditorium at around 12:00 noon. It was a hot day and I for some reason had decided to wear a pair of jeans, which I regretted the whole day. It was a covered auditorium but not completely enclosed. The first thing I did is line up at the stalls and buy a Prj Rev T. The rest of the day I was sweating myself in the new T. The arena had a big parking lot which was converted into a side stage, where all the budding bands were playing. I am not going to list all the bands out there, because I dont remember them and I dont think you would want to read through the entire list of 13 bands. All I was wondering is that when was LP going to play, which happend to be at 10:30 in the night. Cool so we were in the arena and could not get out because the tickets were single entry.

We could have listened to all the bands playing on the Rev stage, but then it isnt fun to listen to bands that you have no clue about. Especially when you are standing in the harsh sun. So we spent most of our time sitting in the airconditioned snack area, sipping beer and eating junk food.

I also happened to meet this guy from Wilmington, DE who was excited to see us "desis" in that concert. He was originally from Ahemdabad, India. And abused big time in gujurati, showing us his excitement.

After 4:30 the auditorium was finally open for us to take our seats and enjoy the better known bands. Julien-K, Placebo, and My Chemical Romance really rocked the stage with their music. After the show that MCR put up I was wondering if LP would be able to out do them. But then again they would have to, it was their tour.

When LP finally showed up on the stage they rocked the crowd and put a show that was second to none. The entire arena was jumping and shouting along with the band. At one point Mike Shinoda asked everyone to hold up their cell phones and then asked to take a look around. When I looked back it looked as if I was standing in the middle of the stars rather a galaxy. The lights on the stage were really blinding, but those cell phones up in the air were really soothing. I have been to Nickleback's concert earlier but that was like a college band when compared to LP.

If you ever get a chance to see LP perform live, I would say trade your soul if you have to but dont miss it.

So Long.