Egypt - Beer

Here is another post related to Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. Egypt's people got their drinking water from the river Nile. Nile carried a lot of waterborne diseases. To prevent them, the people drank beer instead of water! 

In some shops/bars, the beers were served in a cylindrical goblet made of clay. This goblet had a pointed bottom. This was to ensure that the customer could not put the goblet down and hence had to gulp down the entire beer.  And once the beer got over, he would want more! Nice business trick eh? :)

GPS! Oh Poor GPS!

Every time the GPS says: "Calculating" or "Re-calculating", we get impatient. During our previous long trip, it just wouldn't show the route. Finally, we realized the "Avoid Motorways" option was ENABLED! Hmm... And this time... the GPS was saying that the drive from Washington DC to New York would take 12hours. Why? Simple reason! "Avoid Toll" was ENABLED! We were cursing it so much. But a machine's mind is as intelligent as the human's who's operating it!!! :)

P.S: Finally when we disabled the "Avoid Toll" option, it seemed to show a route that had so many toll gates in between. We were wondering if the GPS was taking revenge on us! :)

Shoes Holder

We walk barefoot at home and I do not like loads of shoes right at the main door of our house. As it is a narrow corridor, there is no way I can keep a shoe rack. I had to think of some other option. Or may be my hands were itching to touch the sewing machine again! :)

Whatever be the reason, I can now proudly say that I sewed a shoes holder/organizer all by myself. Have a look at the tutorial here

P.S: I used to write the posts in Google docs and then publish them directly onto my blog. All of a sudden I do not see that button anymore. I verified in Google docs help. It says I can publish it as HTML page and give its link in my blogger. Alas! I can't directly publish from Google docs anymore! Hope the link works!

Sahityamlo Hasyam

Every day when I open the youtube home page, the first thing that I search for is "Sahityamlo Hasyam" This is a Telugu program by Dr. Garikipati Narasimha Rao. It is about Telugu language and literature with a twist of humour. He recites a number of funny Telugu/Sanskrit poems and explains the meaning of those. It is very funny to watch. I love it. We are supposed to have one episode per week. However for the past one month, no new episodes have been uploaded to youtube by the Teluguone channel.

I replay most of the episodes. I know some of the poems by heart. I love watching them. I laugh at the same funny poems again and again. It does not bore me at all.

I am very happy that Aditya told us about Dr. Garikipati Narasimha Rao and this program. If we hadn't known, we would have missed all those evenings of fun. V and I sit and watch this program together. It feels nice to share similar interests. Lucky me! :)

Oh TeluguOne! When will you upload new episodes of Sahityamlo Hasyam???

Muscle Joke: Spiderman

We were wondering what would happen to Spiderman's powers in a desert or at the sea. He will not have any building or structure to stick his web to. And so he will not be powerful!!! What do you say?? :-)

Almond Roca!

I can never stop with one piece of Almond Roca! It's just too tempting! Thanks to Cheenu Mama who got the first box of Almond Roca when I was in college. He had got dried prunes too! I was not a great fan of that! ;-)

Mmm.. Back to another piece of Almond Roca!! Got to stop this; actually got it for V, but I am the one having piece after piece! Thank God! We bought a bigger bag! :)

Maggi...

"Bus Do Minute..." is the way the Ad goes. But I never think we can make Maggi noodles in two minutes. It takes two minutes just for the water to start boiling! 

I have never been good at making noodles. I like them when my sisters make them for me. Sometimes they add groundnuts and onions and capsicum to noodles. When I had to stay in Chicago for a couple of months, I made noodles every other day. It was quicker and easier to make; and also fulfilling!

Now I am back to those days... Sitting at home all by myself... I feel lazy to make a proper meal for lunch! Maggi is a nice option. I think it's been more than half a year since I has Maggi! :)

Back to reading...

Yes, I am back to my long time hobby of reading... Over the period of time, I realize that I tend to read more of woman-oriented novels. Either the authors are women or the main protagonist in the story is a girl/woman. The previous two novels that I read (click here) were novels for young-adults. 

"The Summer Spies Moved In" (by Mary Locke) was about a Russian girl who comes to the US and is mistaken for a spy by a neighborhood girl. It portrays the differences between both the cultures. Ultimately the two girls become friends and they work together trying to uncover the actual spy!

The other one "The girl with the phony name" was a novel about a girl who was brought up in an orphanage and trying to come up in life. She does not know who her parents are and she goes in search of them. Meanwhile a person, who claims to be his father, tries to kill her. The one thing that made me feel sad: She is unable to apply for passport, as she does not have a birth certificate. Poor thing! This may be the plight of every orphan!

The latest book I read was "Triumph of Katie Byrne" by Barbara Taylor Bradford. I started this book while traveling from East coast back home during the long weekend. It is very different from the earlier books that I read of the same author. This may be her first detective novel and it did not have (m)any romantic scenes (you know what I mean! ;)) It is the story of Katie who aspires to become a theater-actor. She has two other childhood friends who share her same ambition. On a tragic night, her friends are brutally hit; one is murdered and the other lies in coma. Katie does not know if she can continue towards her goal of become an actor. It is her story, her triumph! 

I finished the three hundred odd pages in 2 days flat! Made V feel jealous that he is unable to give as much time to reading. He is reading a John Grisham novel ("The Rainmaker"). More on that novel later! ;-)