What’s keeping me from posting?

   Yeah, Yeah I have not been posting for a loong time (10 days is very long if some one is new to blogging – it really hurts the already minimal traffic my site boasts). I can’t just blame on ‘no good movies released in the past week’ or rather no good prints on internet of the movies I wanted to see. Some other things are also distracting me and keeping me from my writing.

         My husband got an IPhone and ever since the evil gadget entered our home, I’ve not been able to be away from it for all the time my husband is at home. Then he got a camcorder – another one of those electronic stuff for me to toy with. I got addicted to “Everybody Loves Raymond” show and am watching all episodes from Season 1 like mad.

         And finally, the most important of them all – at last the dates for our India trip is '”ALMOST” confirmed and am busy packing stuff and selling off items here. I am all excited about moving back to India and that excitement seems sufficient to stop me from watching movies :)

         But I have managed to watch “Jhoota hi Sahi'” today and I promise that there is going to be a review post tomorrow.

         BTW I cannot stop myself from bragging – this is my first doodle on IPhone :)

The best home remedy for cold : Chukku Kashayam (Dry Ginger Potion)

As promised, I write this post to share one of the best remedies for cold.

Ingredients:

Chukku (Dried Ginger) – about 5 inch long piece

Black pepper – 10 to 15 (crushed fine)

Cumin and Coriander seeds – 1 tsp each crushed fine (optional)

Karupatti (Palm Jaggery) powdered – 1 cup

Tulsi (holy Basil) leaves – 1 bunch

Water – 5 cups

Coffee powder – 1/2 tsp (optional)

Method:

Crush the chukku in a mortar and pestle  till it almost gets powdered (If you get really good dried ginger, it’ll become powder with relatively lesser crushing – ask for ‘maavu chukku’). Dissolve the karupatti in water in a thick bottomed vessel, to this add the powdered chukku, crushed black pepper, coriander and cumin seeds and the tulsi leaves. Allow this mixture to come to a boil. If desired, 1/2 tsp of coffee powder can be added now for the flavor. Allow this to boil on a medium flame for about 10 minutes. Let it sit for about 5 minutes to sediment. Pour out the clear liquid and drink.

This is a sure shot home remedy for common cold. This mixture would be spicy(hot) and if you have a moderate cold, you can use a little less of the chukku and black peppercorns.

Cold or not, this drink is quite refreshing and can be taken everyday!!!

Do try it sometime and let me know if it helped. Have other home remedies for cold? do write them in comments!

The annoying ‘common’ cold!!

That’s right, I was down with a sore, painful throat and a bad cold for the past few days. I feel that the common cold is the most annoying of all the illness, thats bcos, one is not actually sick but still cannot go about the regular discourse without a feeling of unease. Since it is said that ‘A cold cures in 7 days without pills and in 1 week with pills’, I thought this time I’d take the 7 days trial :)

I am going to write a separate post on the ‘sukku kashayam’ (the dry ginger potion) that actually worked wonders on my cold. But here goes small tips that work in a big way! If you have a bad cough, try these home remedies:

1. To 1 glass of hot milk, add 1/4 tsp turmeric powder and crushed black pepper (3 to 4) and natural brown sugar (panam karkandu) and mix well. Drink it when it is tolerably hot. This not just soothes the throat but also controls the cough.

2. To a teaspoon of honey, add 3 to 4 crushed pepper and powdered cinnamon (about 1/2 inch long). Drain this down the throat slowly so that the taste lingers in the throat for sometime.

3. It can be really irritating if coughing does not cease when we try to sleep. Try having one black pepper (slightly crushed) and 1 rock salt (size of the black pepper) in your mouth. Don’t swallow it, just keep it in the mouth and let the flavor get to the throat slowly.

4. Gargle with hot salt water at least 3 times a day and keep drinking hot liquids all through the day whenever the coughing sensation sets in.

P.S: Even though the cold kept me from posting new posts, it didn’t stop me from watching a lot of movies. So look out for many reviews in the next few days!

Do you have any other tips that had come useful when you had cold? Do share them in comments.. I am sure they’d help me next time around!

Designed a Blog!!

Yeah! you heard that right. Though I got a template from somewhere, I tweeked it so much that it no more remains the template that I took. So I think I can safely claim that I designed the blog.

See the blog that I’ve designed by clicking here. Alternatively you can also visit http://frank-virtualizationtips.blogspot.com/. Now I know a bit of CSS too!!!
Do let me know what you think of this blog. Also please comment on where I have not done a good job and areas of improvement.

New York Touring Tips

Keeping up with my pledge here is the post on our New York trip. Instead of going on saying how great the trip was (yup it was indeed greaaat!!) I am going to say my tips on how to save better and see more on a trip to New York. I may not be the frugality expert to give my tips, but I did have my own ways of sightseeing New York.

How to get there??
We took a rental car and drove up to New Jersey. Now the question comes why New Jersey, why not New York. The answer –

1. Staying in New Jersey is way cheaper than staying at New York whatever be the star rating of the hotels you are looking at

2. New York is at a very close commutable distance from here and there are multiple options how you could reach New York - all of them equally exciting. (We took the Lakeland Bus service which took us to the port authority bus terminal, the busiest terminal in US - one of the places to see in NY)

3. If you ever took a car, parking is either complimentary or real cheap at the hotels in New Jersy whereas, in NY, it could easily be anywhere between $15 - $25

4. Even better if you flew to NJ. You could stay at a hotel closer to the airport and almost all hotels near airport has complimentary shuttle to airport from where you can take subway to NY

Plan ahead to save on attractions
Next, all the attractions at New York are really worth seeing and if you are planning to cover most of them, there is no better way to do it other than getting the coupons. You have a variety of coupons to choose from depending on the length of your stay.
Check out these links for the passes they offer

1. The New York Pass
2. New York City Pass
3. New York city Explorer Pass

We took the 2 day pass from “The New York Pass” as we were going for a long weekend. Even otherwise, I find that this is the cheapest amongst all the ones available and offers 55 attractions that you can see with the pass. So the next question is how to use your coupons to the fullest. (Remember that the New York pass comes with $10 coupon on the store and $10 coupon at their restaurant –don’t miss to use it)

How best to use the pass?
To gain profit out of your pass, you must plan to visit as many attractions as possible without compromising the time that needs to be given to each of them. If you are only planning to visit the Empire State building and the Liberty Island, please DO NOT buy the pass. Buying the pass is only meaningful if you use it well over than what it cost you actually. So even before you go to NY spend some time to look up at the list of attractions – again the New York Pass website has the most comprehensive list with links for each of them. You can see them clicking here. There are around 4 cruises (including night time cruise) including the Liberty Island ferry. So if you are a fan of the boats/ferry/sail plan your itinerary around these cruises. You can look up at the time when each of the cruises starts from their respective websites and make sure you reach to the deck at least 15 minutes in advance. Yeah! that is one advantage of your pass, you can skip lines at most places (except the Empire State Building)

How to draw out the itinerary?
Notice that each attraction is a hyperlink in the website. Clicking on the link will give you the webpage of the attraction where you can find the address for them. Span the attractions over your days of visit. Most importantly, plan them based on their address so that you don’t waste time travelling from one end to the other of Manhattan to see the attraction.

Commuting to the attractions
If you have a iphone/Blackberry/any3G phone, I would advise against the Red/Blue Bus that you can hop on/off to see attractions. The reason - they are costlier than what they are worth. Have Google maps installed in your phone and there is no better way to navigate around.
If you don’t have one (which I seriously doubt :) ), do take the bus or else you would lose time and energy trying to get from one place to another. You can see the details here for Red Bus or here for the Blue Bus.
But if you do have the technology in hand, you can get one day unlimited fun pass from MetroCard for $8.25 as compared to close to $60 for the hop on/off bus for a day. This can be used in both the bus and in the subway. Trust me it is exciting!! Your Google maps will show the next available public transit to reach your next destination. Walking up to the bus stops/subway stations is again great because NY Street is where all the action is. I actually had a neck ache craning my neck to see those massive sky scrapers.

These are the basic tips that you can consider before your trip. So enjoy your trip!!!
Please do share your ideas and experiences on New York trips. I’d love to hear them

Nostradamus and 2012

I recently happened to see the History channel documentary on the "Last Book of
Nostradamus" and its striking 7 images. This was the latest to the 2012 doomsday documentary by the "H" channel. Anyways, I wanted to share what I thought about the scholor's thought on those images - not intending on demeaning or anything, just my thoughts. They seemed to be interested more on the wheel at the top and the book of life and the tree of life and did not talk much on the lower part of each image which seemed to be showing 2 different Zodiacs. In some cases, they did touch on the zodiacs, but in others, they interpreted them into something totally not related to Zodiac. The 7 images are here:

Anyways, I have read and seen so much of this doomsday thing in Mayan, Chinese, Egyptian, Christian, Hopi and many other predictions. Also I read on the scientific theories like Galactic alignment of sun in the milky way, pole reversal, solar maxima - yes indeed I was so jobless :) Having read all this, the curiosity bug bit me to see what hindu mythology has to say on this.
From what I have read so far from the internet, according to Gita and other sacred Hindu scriptures, few think that its going to be the end of Kali Yuga and the start of Satya Yuga. Since that seems so far fetched with no Kalki avatar yet, I was more convinced with the second school of thought. This thought says that God has promised a golden period of 5000 years within the kali yuga and 2012 will be the year when we'd usher into this golden period in kali yuga. And I think this better suits to India if not the world as India seems to be doing better economically and is being recognised better world wide these days. If economists predictions turn out true, India would economically over power China by 2012.
So just like all others who are confused reading so much about 2012, I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that the hindu mythology prediction comes true!
To end this post, I want to share an optimist's cartoon that I saw on the net while researching on this topic

Do It - Once Again

I have enjoyed lot of Vivek comedies, which of late are a lot more meaningful and informative. Recently I watched the “Koffee with Anu” show (Thanks to internet and those who host these videos on their website) in which the guests were Vivek and Mayilsami “Chandrayan” Annadurai. The show was very interesting. But what stood out at the end of the show was the message that Vivek gave. One simple mantra to encompass the meaning of several statements of advice. We have heard of all these : “Success comes to the one who never stops trying”, “It is not important how many times you fall, but what is important is how many times you get up after a fall”, “Try, try and try again”, stories of Gajini Mohammed and mulla stories of how the person who tried the 100th time succeeded over the person who gave up after the 99th attempt. But all these stories in 4 short words “Do it – Once Again”. I was awed by the simplicity of the statement and wanted to share it in my blog.

On a lighter vein, even if I am the only regular reader of my blog as of now, I am not going to stop posting here and am going to keep doing it once again each day ;-) with a hope to have many readers some day!!!