Bhooshan Pandya | Interface & Usability Analyst

Weekends are fascinating and it’s not always that we end a friday at 5 pm from the office! Thats exactly what I did today when I decided to accompany Randhir to a baker shop at Grant Road called B. Meherwan & Co. (estd. 1914 & not kidding). Mom used to bring their famous Mawa cakes for me when I was a kid. Now the adult in me decided to explore the place all by himself :)

So here we were seated inside the bakery….well actually an Irani hotel and I was starving. The waiters seemed least bothered to look at us. The interiors of the hotel were very disappointing; as if they hadn’t been looked after ever since it they were set up. Amidst some suspicious glances by the fellow eaters, we ordered “2 plate khari and a Dukes Raspberry drink”. The waiter must’ve almost died hearing this. He would have been franctically looking for a photographer to capture these two great souls who have ordered such an “outstanding” combination of snacks. Wasn’t Khari supposed to be “married” with tea or coffee? & the Raspberry drink would have suited “Ms Idli Sambar” pretty much! We had a good laugh ourselves :D One must have a knack of serious humour to try such things out in real life.

The cakes were anything but good. The mawa version had sold out but their fruit cousins were still there. Their open display on the counter rack, with the flies having an aerial view turned Randhir off but not me :D I bought a plum cake which was, of course, wrapped in plastic.

My first experience at an Irani hotel was worth remembering. May the khari and raspberry have a wonderful time forever :D

I am not much of a soccer fan but it’s a treat to watch Brazil take the field. I remember that I had not missed their matches at the FIFA 2002 WorldCup in Japan where they had not lost or drawn a single match in the entire tournament. Neverthless, Germany, who had not conceded a single goal in the entire tournament (which gave their goalkeeper Oliver Kahn the nickname of ‘The Wall’), lost to Brazil in the final 1-0. Such is the magic of Samba soccer :)

Yesterday, as I hopped around the news channels, I stopped for a moment to read that Brazil had defeated arch rivals Argentina 4-1 to lift the FIFA Confederations Cup. Although this win is not a surprise for me, Argentina had humbled Brazil in their backyard 3-1 not so long ago. After the 2002 World Cup win, this is the only nation in the world to have won the world cups in all the continents which have hosted it. Europe is next and I am sure they are going to be there in the finals. They are the Copa America champs too and they won that cup with a second rung team :)

BTW watch out for Adriano, the top scorer of the Confederations Cup, who’s wish is to play alongside Ronaldo in a world cup match. Amen! :)

The story began when I suddenly found that a URL was being parsed from the PDF document of a case study, which I had created. The original document was made using InDesign CS and I was pretty sure that I had not inserted a bookmark/hyperlink anywhere. The object in question was a URL and an email ID (corporate.engineering@tcs.com). Once opened in Acrobat Reader 7, the links used to become live. The second problem which I faced here was that although the URL was parsed properly, the email ID was faulty. So instead of corporate.engineering@tcs.com it parsed only engineering@tcs.com.

After searching high and low, I finally got some answers. Acrobat Reader (6 & 7) comes with an option of automatically parsing text as URLs (see Edit › Preferences › General). In the case of the email, it was discovered that it took the ‘.’ (in the corporate’.’ engineering@tcs.com) as a full stop (and therefore an end to the sentence) and parsed the later half of it as an email :) This was a pleasant revelation for me. I am relieved of a great worry.

I have started listening to (read collect) a lot of MP3s. Generally I end up listening to them on my PC but off late I have started to miss my collection at my workpace :)) I seriously wish I had an iPod which could carry my collection along and entertain me in those tranquil moments. In the coming days, my aim is to own one. Or if some good samaritan is reading this, please gift me one ;))

Manish Sharma, my dear colleague at TCS would be leaving for the US on July 8th. He’s been around for quite some time now but we only got to know each other through our passion for games. He’s a die hard PS2 fan while I keep hopping between PS and XBOX :) He’d arranged a small get-together at his house at Belapur (Navi Mumbai) today. Rains lashed that part of the city but the 6 of us had a great time there. He’s got a small girl Ishika who’s a bundle of joy :) Although the rest of the gang had decided to stay back for the night, I became home sick and decided to come back, alongwith Sukanya & Vikrant. I enjoyed myself thoroughly there. Au revoir Manish!! I am sure we will meet someday at some place into the future :) All the best to you.

The other good news is that Amrita and I were back to speaking terms today. We were not speaking with each other for over a month now due to some reasons :( Today was her birthday and she had invited all of us for a luncheon at 5Spices near Ballard Pier.

And yes…there some more good news because of which I am not able to sleep tonight and that is not to be shared online. In short I am very happy today for the way the day went. :)