Vegas Baby!!!

Couple of weeks back, me and my husband went on a vacation to Vegas. We dropped in Phoenix first to spend time with my cousin and his new baby. We were in Vegas for two days and it was fun. Here's my report.
We stayed at the MGM Grand. Nice hotel; lobby and casino were great. We stayed at their west wing tower and the rooms there were modern types with small TV in the wash basin mirror and frosted glass doors to the toilet and bathroom. It was kind of weird but I guess that is what they mean by modern.
The first day we went and got show tickets for Mystere at Treasure Island from the Tix 4 Tonight booth at a discount. They generally have same day show tickets for half price and some at 20% discount. We walked back on the strip and saw some of the hotels. We also traveled via the Monorail. It is good to get a one day pass so you don't have to walk around so much and its cheaper than individual rides. The monorail stations are at the back of the hotels and you still have to walk through the hotel casinos.
We had lunch at the Spice Market Buffet at Alladin which has now been bought by Planet Hollywood and will be remodeled.
The show was good. It is the original Cirque de Soleil show on the strip. In the night we again just walked around, saw the Mirage volcano show which was a little disappointing. We had dinner at a cafe inside Paris. We also went up the Eiffel tower replica and the view from top was great.
We then went to Studio 54 at the MGM. Huge dance club and lots of people. The line to get in was long but you can pass of an extra $20 to the bouncer and cut in.
Next day we spent exploring the MGM itself. We went to the CBS television studio where you can watch shows that the network is planning to broadcast and give your views and opinions. You get discount coupons and stuff if you sign up. We were asked to participate in a moderated focus group for more views on the show we watched. It wa about an hour and we got $50 each to do so. It is good pass-time if you are just not in the mood to walk on the strip. The money covered our gambling losses earlier in the day on the Roulette and Blackjack table. We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. It is a nice place and the food was good too. In the evening we ventured out to explore Luxor and Mandalay Bay. At Mandalay Bay,we just sat down on one of the slot machines and tried our luck. We sat at a 25c machine on which you can play 5 lines at a time. We made $25 and then switched slots. We then won about a $150 more. There were some double money thingies on the slots. It was great. So in the end of our gambling sessions, we were even.
When we came back out, we saw lots of people on the walkway between MGM and NY-NY. They were there to see the immigration rally which was going to end in front of the Liberty statue. There were thousands of Hispanics and Latinos and it was a scene to watch. It continued on for an hour. We saw the fountains at Bellagio and then had dinner at the Zanzibar cafe in Alladin. Again nice cafe, huge portions.
Next day, we flew back totally tired and exhausted. We again tried luck at the slots after checking out and made $20. I would advise that if you are not a high roller or don't have too much money to spare but want to gamble, you should try the slots. The 5 line ones are good and you should play all lines at a time. Go for the 5c or 25c ones. The ones that say wheel of fortune are good too.
Good Luck!!

I Dream of Jeannie on DVD

Its finally here, the IDOJ TV series on DVD. I bought the first season. It contains 4 DVDs with 30 episodes. I bought the color version. I don't think I had seen more than a couple of episodes from the first season so this will be fun. I saw the first two this weekend and it was nice. The color is pretty good. Technology can do wonders nowadays.
I used to love seeing Jeannie and Bewitched when they used to show it in India in Hindi. :D. I got to watch some English version on TV Land but it usually airs during weekdays so am at work. I am thinking about getting the Bewitched series too. Lets see. I am not usually into spending money on new DVDs except for the very good ones like Lord of the Rings, which to tell you frankly I haven't watched fully.
I love the title music of Jeannie. By the way, if you search for the Jeannie DVD and find some sites offering all season, be careful. I don't think those are the official releases. I think they were recorded and then copied onto DVDs. They are region free and shipped internationally which kind of sets up a warning signal.

Do Friends Last Forever???

What is the answer to this question? Do friends and friendships last a lifetime or is it possible that like Love, we can fall out of a friendship? In a struggle to get an answer I keep reminiscing what my mother used to say about 10-12 years back when I used to spend a majority of my time with friends outside the house. She said "your friends are not going to last forever" and I hate the thought that she might be right.
So why do we grow apart from our friends, those closest to us during our struggles, problems and all types of issues? Those people that you met in school or college and shared every little detail with. Those for whom you would not listen to your parents and family. And Those who knew about your love life before maybe even you did.
In this day and age with such advanced modes of communication, it is easier to keep in touch with people than maybe in our parent's times. Then does "Out of Sight, Out of mind" hold true? Do your other commitments pull you away from your friends? Or is it something else like lack of common interests? Or is it just plain that they don't like you anymore?
Living outside India in a foreign country and far away from your family gets you closer to your friends. But does being closer tear you apart? Or does distance make the heart grow fonder? Does one expect more when you are close friends compared to friends from work? Or do greater expectations cause greater heartbreaks. Does moving a few miles away from your friends mean that you are not part of the inner circle anymore? Or does the distance not matter?
The difference between friends and investments is that you do not expect returns from your friends. But then you do expect appreciation because you do invest your time and soul into friendships. Or is it that one needs to have diversification in friends too? Do friendships not cross barriers of all kinds?
Is it better to stay in different cities and meet/talk occasionally? Or does one just make acquaintances as they grow older?Do we need to work upon out friendships like any other relationship in our life?
Lots of difficult questions to which there is no simple answer.

Weekend Getaway!!

This weekend, we went to Atlanta to meet up with one of our good friends who was coming from India. It was a nice fun trip but now I feel so tired that I have skipped gym for two days. On the way over there we stopped at a subway for dinner. This subway was a peculiar one and I mean that in a positive way. The place was nice and big. The "sandwich artists" (that's what subway likes to call them) were really nice. I mean they really made our subs with care and attention and didn't just throw all the toppings in. They piled it nicely and systematically. I wish I had taken a picture then with my new Sony Ericsson w600 phone. But I just had it for a day, so I didn't remember. These days it is difficult to find such diligent workers especially at fast food joints.
We still got some more furniture to assemble. It never ends. I had ordered a set of occasional tables from >Rooms To Go. The coffee table that came has the screws missing. I ordered the hardware about 2 weeks back. Yesterday, I came to know that it can take upto 6 weeks as RTG had to order it from the manufacturer. So these people think that the customer should sit with an unassembled coffee table for one and half months. Unbelievable!! They do not have a refund policy for such cases. I did get them to refund my delivery charges. But now we have decided to go look for similar screws so that we atleast have something till the actual hardware comes in. So much for saving on the delivery charges.

Interesting Reads!!

Of late, I have been following a couple of web-logs regurarly. One is Plumb Tuckered. The girl seems my age. Her posts are pretty interesting and almost always accompanied by a picture that describes the subject of her post. She does have interesting things happening to her and its just fun to read.
The second is a very famous one by Gaurav Sabnis - Vantage Point. This guy does post a lot and is very well known in the Indian blogosphere. I like his space because it has posts on all issues. Kinda like me, Gaurav generally writes on anything he feels strongly about. His interests seem varied.
I do need to follow a couple of more blogs mentioned by him.
Let me know if you have any suggestions on good ones to follow on regular basis. (Besides the obvious ones).

My King Kong Review

I went to see King Kong over the weekend. It may a bit late but here's my review of it. The movie itself is well made with great special effects but that's about the only good thing I have to say. The story is nothing great or original as most of you may know. The adventure undertaken is very interesting. But when the cast lands on "Skull Island", they are faced with gigantic, enormous sized creatures. Every creature that your imagination can conjure up has been put into a 30-50 minute ordeal on the actors as well as the audience. I am not sure how this is a PG-13 movie with such horrific scenes. The scenes with all these creatures from dinousers to gigantic spiders to octopus type creatures that can suck you up, keep coming at you one after the other. This gets fairly tiring on the viewer offering no space to breathe.
Secondly, the movie is way too long. Over 3 hours for a weird love story seems kind of overstretched. The last part when King Kong lands in New York and runs around creating chaos and then finds Anne has been stretched way too much. So many times, the two just keep looking at each other. My heart didn't even ache for them unlike reviews that say this is a tear jerking movie.
Like they, anything is moderation is never bad for you. King Kong definately needs some moderation.

Green card retrogression issue

What is it? I am sure many of us are still confused about this new ruling that has come out. How are we affected by this? To tell you the truth, all of us from India and China who are on H1-B visas and were hoping to apply for a green card are affected in a huge way unless a major reform comes along.
There are couple of places you can look for answers. One is http://www.isnamerica.org.
Another to check for visa bulletin updates is at the travel.state.gov.
My short understanding of this issue is that, we can all apply for the Labor certification and I-140. Once the 140 gets approved, we cannot apply for I-485/Adjustement of Status (which basically provides us with an EAD so that we then do not have to worry about our work and travel authorization) till our number becomes the current priority. What does this mean. There is a date of late 2001 as being the current priority date. This means that people who had filed before that date now have priority in the process. Each year, only a certain number of green cards are available to each country. If that number has been exhuasted, we have to wait till the next batch opens up. This means that if we apply now, there are 5 years of dates ahead of us. I don't know how big the number would be, but esitmations says that you won't be able to even file for the AOS till the next 5, 7 or even 10 years. This basically means, you can kiss the green card good bye!!
There are still ways you can keep extending your H1, but you cannot change jobs or job profiles which becoems very restrictive and can mean not having career options one would like.
I just hope all the lobbying on part of people from the affected countries and the industry in this country can help reverse this ruling and make the process easier for new applicants.
It is such an irony that all immigrants who are here legally and faihfully pay taxes to the governement are the ones who suffer the most in this process.

New place, New Life

Once again there has been a drought here. I simply haven't had the time. We found a new place to stay and were busy moving and setting up. There are still couple of things I have ordered that haven't yet come. I also ordered a new camera, the Canon SD 400 from Amazon since I left my previous with my sister. I have been disappointed with Amazon lately. Up until last year, the items were generally shipped the next day and one received it within a week even with free shipping. But nowadays, they don't ship the item until their shipping estimate date comes. I ordered on 15th and the shipping estimate is 23rd, so obviously they haven't even shipped it yet even though they say 'Usually ships within 24 hrs'. This has been happening since the start of 2005 and I have complained to them and they always give pseudo reasons for it.
Hey, I started a new routine with my gym. Since I have moved close to work, we now go to the gym in the morning at 6 am. So obviously I get up at 5 and have my beloved tea every morning. It helps me wake up.