Eating Binge Past 4 days.

So this weekend started from 24th April 09, Friday afternoon and its now 28th April 09, Tuesday morning. Well my weekends are based on what was for food, how tasty it was (quality) and equally important how much it was (quantity). I have been binging these past 4 days and so far it has been awesome. Not a single meal disappointed me and it just got better each time.

Friday is work from home for me and i had a collegue over at my place. We decided on goingto this chinese buffet for lunch. The place is called "Bamboo" and it is an upscale restuarent and its close to my home. Its been about 6-8 months since i wanted to go there for buffet but never got a chance. So went there with an empty stomach with a very simple plan .. eat as much as is humanly possible. I love the crab rangoons over there and have attached a picture of the same. I had over 18 of these .. yep thats right 18 ... and also had samples of the chicken teriyaki, chicken wings, shrimps, noodles, chicken with peanuts and beef. Ended the meal with 2 scoops of green tea ice cream which wasnt all that good, so had about 3 small pieces of the chocklate cake. Wanted to go for another helping of the crab rangoon but did not find any company :(

Came back home 1.5 hrs later and could hardly move. Send out a couple of emails to my manager and went off to sleep. I slept like a log until neha woke me up aroiund 8pm and asked me if i wanted diner... I was like "no way" i was still so full from the $13 buffet and it was so worth it.

Saturday was a beautiful day in Boston and i went for a 4 mile run in the morning and followed that up with an hour and a half of cricket. Yeah baby cricket season has started ..FINALLY....

Then had a couple of errands to do, so wrapped that up and we were back home by around 4 in the afternoon. Neha had lunch at Chipotle and i was very tempted to have as well but managed to control myself.

Come evening and Neha asked if i wanted to have lamb. I dont

recall if it was Neha who brought it up and I forced her to :)But anyways we decided on making Hyderbadi Biryani. Looked up the recipe on the net and started helping Neha with it.Neha decided on making some Veg Biryani as well so she could enjoy it as well. It took about 2 hours to get the biryani done and i was starving by the time it was over. And the biryani was so Yummy. I loved it, the lamb was cooked perfectly, the spices in the biryani were almost perfect and Adwait does not eat Lamb meat. So it was almost all for me. And boy did i have a great time finishing it all up. Emties the entire cooker full of biryani and was having a hard time getting up. As always thanked Neha for the amazing amazing meal and for always trying something new for me :)

The picture however is of Mutton gravy "Aai Style" which Neha made a week back and it turned out perfect ... just like how Aai makes it back home and how i remeber eating it from my kid days.

Saturday came and gone, we moved to the lazy Sunday...

did nothing fruitful the entire day and was just lazing around all afternoon and evening.
Neha decided on maing cheesecake for us and for herself. Obviously chocklate for me and rasberry for her. We both love cheesecakes from "cheesecake factory", however they are ridiculously expensive .. about 8$ for a small piece of the heavenly godiva chocklate cheesecake. So Neha decided on making it at home. She had done it once in the past and it turned out great. Took her about 4 hours before it was finally done and ready to be served. So at around 8pm we sat down to eat this Great and godly chocklate cheesecake. It had a layer of cheesecake, then a layer of chocklate , then another layer of cheesecake and a small layer of chocklate. Topped it up with chocklate sauce and vola had the most amazing desert cooked all at home by the great Neha.

Monday was a usual day at work and for a change.. actually for

a big change Neha came home early, around 5pm. She wanted to go to the mall but as always i wasnt very agreeable. We did some house cleaning and Neha said she wanted to make cabbage, but somehow she ended up making chicken nawabi and panner butter masala.

and with Nan it tasted amazing .... the chicken was perfectly cooked and went very wel with the thick gravy and nan. The Paneer itself wasnt very good but Neha did something to it and voila like magic it tasted very yummy. I told Neha i would have 2 Nan and would leave some chicken for tomorrows lunch. 5 Nans and an empty Kadhai of Chicken later i was satisafied. My stomach was like "dude enough" .. all i ahve been doing for the past 4 days was eat, eat and eat some more.

But it was all worth it. I might be a couple of pounds heavier but boy do i feel good. Isnt this the whole point of following that strict 6 day fitness routine. Running atleast 20 miles a week and working on the upper body for 2 days. Just so that i dont feel guilty when i go on such a eating binge. The whole point of working out is so that down the road your doctor should never have to tell you "you cant have chicken, chocklates, fried food, grilled food or any other food that you like .. its only boring veggies for you and these tablets that you have to take twice a day for your high BP and for your weak heart... and Ooh by the way here is the 15 lakh bill for your operation , hospital visits and my fees...... Thank you please come again"

Operation "Sholay" well Done

So i have been having some issues with Basanti lately, thats my "close to heart" laptop. She has been running slow and hot lately, i realized the problem with her is all the dirt she has accumulated over the 2.5 yrs she has been with me. So i did some research and decided to open her up to clean her fans and the cooling system. Believe me it was one of the toughest decision i have ever made, i knew even the smallest mistake could mean i could never use Basanti again and I plan to stay with her as long as possible.

So with a heavy heart i decided to open her up and i shall show you guys some of the images i have taken of her.

Firstly here is my tool kit. I had a screw driver set, a can of compressed air, some cotton swabs and a liquid to clean the screen.

The first step was to remove the battery and then open the hinge as seen in the picture above. This was followed by removing the keyborad and then to take apart the LCD screen. Removing the screen was difficult and i had to extremely careful to remove the screws and the cables. So here is how Basanti looks without her keypad and her beautiful and high resolution screen.

I also had to remove her heart out which was her hard drive where all the data was stored. The most important piece of Basanti. I handled it extemely cautiously and took out the hard drive and the optical drive as well.

It was after this that the most difficult part began. I had to take out the palm rest which has abt 11 screws at the bottom and very tight connections at the top. Also I had to be extremely careful to not damage any of the processors. It took about an hour just to reach this far and Neha was already getting impatient, but alas the operation had already began and there was no turning back now.

So here is how she looks from the inside, very pretty aint she.

Next i located the fan and the cooling system and took the fan out. And what I saw was something no one should ever see in their lifetime. There was atleast 3-4 inches of dust between the fan and cooling system. The cause of my Basanti slowing down and aging well before her time. Here is what i am talking about

I removed all the dirt and the dust which by the way also took me a good 30 minutes. And Neha helped me to clean the fan as well. Here is how much dirt i collected.

After the operation was completed the next important thing to do was to put Basanti together again. If taking her apart was difficult this was going to be even more difficult. So i started putting her together piece by piece. First the fan, followed by the palm rest, then the screen which was most difficult, the keyboard followed and lastly the hinge which by the way put a good fight to slip in place.

Then i put the battery back in her and turned her on ;) and to my horror her display was all Green with blue lines all over her. I panicked and was scared for her life, but i kept my cool and opened her up again but just the screen and the keyboard. Put all the wires and connectors in place tightly and put in back. Only this time i did not put the hinge back on since i belived that this was the actual problem.

I prayed and i prayed hard as i turned her on again and Behold i see beautiful blue screen greeting me. I was so happy and elated at the successful operation. I put the hinge carefully back on and cleaned her screen to give a new younger look . Here take a look

3 hours after i stared working on her she was good as new. I make sure her hard drive was ok, took her for a spin and she worked beautifully and was so much quicker that she ever was. Now i am looking to get her a new accessory, an additional 1GB RAM module to upgrade her for even better performance. If you guys love your Basanti as much i suggest to make sure she is clean and not running too hot.